you can easily construct one with just sticks and a few plastic sheets! or even plastic bottles just look around websites to find the perfect one for you.

You could certainly construct your own cold frame but given where you live I would recommend a good solid wooden frame and glass. Don't be tempted by the cheap ones with polycarbon instead of glass, it won't cope with the weather that will get thrown at it.

A properly constructed polytunnel 'should' survive but it really depends how strong the wind gets with you.

Our 30 feet by 15 feet poly tunnel survived the wind which blew the glasshouse off its foundations.

If you can afford it, and your site is well drained, then you might consider a partly buried greenhouse! This means that you build brick walls in a pit and cap them with a low greenhouse roof. This would mean that the glass is much less exposed to the wing but, of course, won't work if the pit becomes full of water. You can get some ideas from the internet.

An additional thought if you have any neighbours take a look and see whether they have a tunnel or a greenhouse. Or check your local nursery.

Don't know too much about greenhouses but since you have strong prevailing winds would proper postioning of the greenhouse be an important factor too in keeping it all together? Just curious about that.

as long as you make sure you close the poly tunnel off both ends so wind cant get inside it will be fine as it flexes and is quit airo dynamic . check on you tube is your best idea .

Np is giving the usual advice on polytunnels but we have a cheap, garden tunnel from which I have cut off the doors from each end allowing the wind to pass straight through!
I use the tunnel to protect alpines and seedlings from too much rain but want plenty of ventilation. The tunnel itself is pretty crappy and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but just from the issue of strong winds, this is working fine for us - if we have a dump of snow this winter it will collapse!!!!
Make sure that it is open at both ends though. Before I cut of the doors we went away for a long weekend last year: The wind was blowing stongly from the east when we left and I closed that door of the tunnel. Over the weekend the wind moved round completly and nearly took the tunnel away. Fortunately a neighbour saw what was happening and opened the opposite door ;-(((

yep look on youtube your right bh . if you let the wind in as you did at one end it will usually blow it away .

http://youtu.be/XmPpKyOq6S0

check this out as said good as gold in up to 100 mile an hour winds just keep the ends on .

The old chestnut - Thank you all for your thoughts and youtube clips. Lots of food for thought. I have been keeping an eye on my neighbours and two have poly tunnels, one more shaded than my location and it withstood the catastrophic storm of last March, the other did not and was mangled. I notice a few discreetly located glass houses. I think local knowledge is very important in these situations and will ask around as local farmers have lots of experience of what works or not. BW

your welcome

Having lived at 1000 feet in th past I woldn't like to recommend either with any confidence but I do wish you every success. If I had to choose I'd go for the tunnel as its cheaper and simpler to replace the cover than glass.
I'd tend to go with a conservatory and/ or some cold frames given the choice.

lower is definatly better . I know a hippy place wear they use a toilet that ends up as fertalizer . they have solor panels and there houses for want of a better word are made of wood and polythene and they've been there years self sufficient . its the quality of how you build your poly tunnel not weather to have one or not .

Our glass house has doors at both ends and in really bad wind we open both. The damage wind does is when it can get in but not out again.
The tunnel has an opening at one end only, but that is protected by an evergreen plant and faces a direction from which the wind cannot get in. It has been up now for 19 years and the cover only replaced when it got too brittle and dirty.

the worst is deffinatly one end being left open you've only got to have your windscreen break while your driving along to know that .

if you look around wear they grow shrubs and trees for the garden trade they use slatted material full of hoes to diffuse the air as you cant stop it .