Albie Oelofse and Emmanuel Muyumba from Hope Village Namibia implemented a new medium high veggie tunnel at Hope Village in Windhoek, as part of their research program. The aim was to plan a tunnel for vegetable production that will be four times the size of the normal tunnel that has been in use. We wanted to research the cheapest way of constructing a medium veggietunnel that will be standing by itself, rather than being supported with stay wires at the back and the front, as we are doing in the past, with the normal tunnels.
The new medium veggie tunnel is 8m wide, 13m long and 4m high. It has of 11 arches and 7 ‘lines’ from the front to the back that holds the arches together in a ‘cage’. These arches and lines are made of 50mm pipes, which proved to be strong. The older smaller tunnels are using 32mm arches only, with no ‘lines’. These tunnels are not as sturdy.
This new medium tunnel was quite a ‘breakthrough’ too, in that we are now able to plant more plants per area and we can grow the plants that grow higher such as cucumber and tomatoes much easier. We do not use planting bags in this new tunnel, which is why we have more planting space. It is simply more cost effective.
During the planning phase we had a look at a steel structure compared to a plastic structure as mentioned above. The cost for the steel structure was about N$37,700.00 with the netting, compared to the plastic structure which was only N$10,000.00.
1. Some of the features of the Medium Tunnel and its benefits:
· It is 8m wide, 4m high and 13m long while the previous tunnel was 3.80m wide, 1.90m high and 9m long
· It has 11 arches and 7 lines of 50mm pipes which are tied together to make it self-standing as a cage, while the previous tunnels had 5 arches and are not self-standing. It is supported with wire stays from front and the back
· Can accommodate a greater variety of veggies, thus offers a more diversified diet and food production
· Has more planting space compared to the previous tunnels, that uses planting bags
· Can easily go organic due to the mono planting bed
· Cheaper irrigation system compared to the ones in the planting bags
2. Planting
We divided the mono bed inside the medium tunnel into raised bed gardens, where we could accommodate about 13 crops of:
· Cabbage
· Green pepper
· Tomatoes
· Beans
· Peas
· Butternut
· Watermelon
· Cucumber
· Carrots
· Eggplant
· Rapes
· Beetroots
· Spinach
3. Budget
Our budget for the implementation of the medium tunnel ended in a total of N$32,000.00. This included the changes we had to make to fit the new tunnel over the area where 2 old tunnels used to be.
· We had to modify the fence by extending it 5m longer at the back of the tunnel.
· We had to level the ground at the back of the new tunnel
· We had to dig 40cm deep to bring in sterilised building sand for planting (mono planting bed)
· We had to fill up the mono bed with the sand
· We had to construct the cage of 50mm pipes for the medium tunnel and then we had to put over the net
· We had to fit in a working irrigation system
· We had to paint the gate and as well as the water tanks and stand
Conclusion
There were challenges such as: i) we needed to know how to construct the cage, whether the pipes would be strong enough against the pressure of the wind ii) we had to design a proper working irrigation system.
At first we used the Meganet sprayer type which proved to be inefficient and performing unsatisfactory, then we changed to the Netafin sprayer type which are working well, giving a soft rain with a diameter of 5m.
The whole project phase was implemented within a period of one and a half month.
Emmanuel Muyumba
Trainer of Trainers in Urban Horticulture
Hope Village Namibia
+264813899866
P.O Box 4774
Windhoek
Namibia
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