The Occasional Gardener: When it comes to producing fruit and veg in decent quantities, polytunnels are your only man
Being a tunnel virgin, I am amazed at the fast and furious growth under plastic. The paths are almost invisible under the spread-eagled courgettes, bushy marigolds and curly lettuce; the beans and broccoli are fighting for space; and the seedlings in trays are growing so quickly I can't keep up with the weed clearance programme and there isn't anywhere to transplant the baby lettuce, beetroot, endive, rocket and chicory.
It's all a little overwhelming - especially since my first experience of growing was during last year's monsoon when even green-fingered experts had problems. Another reason I wasn't too ambitious about my little tunnel is that it didn't go up until well into the summer - mid-June seemed very late to be sowing seeds and I didn't have huge hopes for my dinner table.
To try to catch up, I bought a couple of young vegetable plants and an organic friend donated some tomato plants. Yesterday, I cooked my first aubergine and spent a couple of hours with string, tying the five-foot tall bushy tomato plants onto the tunnel roof bars to stop the branches breaking under the weight of the fruit (and they were only eight inches tall when they went in). Whatever was eating the courgette flowers has stopped so home-grown ratatouille will be on the menu any day now.
I'm also starting to eat the mangetout and green beans grown from seed, and every visitor goes away with a bagful of cut-and-come-again lettuce or oriental greens.
I've also turned into a tunnel tourist - I can't resist seeing what other tunnellers are up to. At Enniscoe Gardens near Ballina, the restored Victorian walled garden is looking wonderful. But it's not the flowers I'm interested in - it's the two acres barely visible through the stone arch. Last November, three organic growers set out to reclaim an overgrown vegetable garden. Chickweed, dandelions, docks and silverweed had filled the three tunnels and the apple trees had almost disappeared under grass and weeds. Putting my method of killing weeds to shame (cover with manure and black plastic and leave for a season), they dug the 80-foot by 20-foot tunnels by hand - twice. Then they re-made the raised beds and added compost. "Lots of weeds came up this summer," says Catriona Noone. "We had to hand-weed very carefully around the vegetables - but over time, it gets better." I have the same problem but hand-weeding is not for me. Another way of preventing weeds is by planting seedlings so close together that they grow faster and block the light from any new weedlings.
Like me, Catriona and her two business partners, Frank Davidson and Tommy Hurst, have come to love black plastic. It keeps down weeds and has the advantage in a dry summer of conserving moisture. It might not be the most attractive material but with only three of them and a couple of restaurants to keep stocked with veggies, they need all the help they can get. While the three entrepreneurs have managed to get the tunnels under control, they are still struggling with the rest of the walled garden. But what it lacks in cultivated soil and edible produce, it more than makes up for in its romantic atmosphere - the overgrown stone ruin surrounded by old apple trees and the mown-grass paths wandering through overgrown brambles are like something from a fairytale. Back in my garden, it's time to transplant more seedlings - or maybe I'll just find another tunnel to visit.
• Organic produce is for sale at Ennsicoe Gardens, near Crossmolina, Ballina. Open every day until September 30th. The tea-room, gift shop, heritage museum and Family History Research Centre are open every day until October 31st. Tel: 096-31809
• This column appears fortnightly
