Caring for our Winter Crop

 So glad we were prepared for the cold!

All our plants did well under cover.  Each bed was covered with Remay (white ground cover) under the plastic hoop house.

In order to keep the plastic taut/secure over the end of the hoop house, two things are done:
1) grommets are installed on the end of the plastic cover, and nylon twine is passed through the grommets.  The twine is attached to the galvanized conduit (see pic below)  

















2) on the long side, the plastic cover is attached to metal conduit with special aluminum clips.  A piece of 3/8" rebar is inserted inside the conduit to provide weight.  The plastic cover is held taut by the weight of the conduit/rebar on each side of the hoop house, making anchoring the plastic to the ground unnecessary.  The strong winds we had this morning did not disturb any of our hoop houses.

The end cover of the hoop house is made with 2 pieces of plastic overlapping 18" to prevent cold air from entering tunnel when closed at night.

















Plastic on the end is held in place with homemade clips made from 4" pieces of black irrigation pipe that have been cut to fit over the PVC pipes.

Grommets are reinforced with a piece of bicycle inner tube.

Voila!

















My interest is in refining a hoop house design that greatly helps extend the growing season until Jan. or later.  The combination of tight, snow and wind proof hoophouses, remay and black bottles as heat sink will do the trick.   For black bottles (mild jugs courtesy of Ohori's), we use Rit dye (available at Albertson, Hobby Lobby and on sale at Joann Fabrics).

Taetyn and Ivy inspected the compost pile to see how the worms we put in a few weeks ago were doing.









































Our garden parties will continue through the winter.  Once all of our hoop houses are finished, we'll begin building an outdoor kitchen, outhouse and tool shed, all part of the design of this mini urban farm.  We may also begin the installation of a drip irrigation system and will need to dig a trench to bring water and power to the back of the property.  

Please keep your eyes open for recycled construction material such as 2X4, 2X6, plywood, OSB, gutters and metal roofing. 

Next Garden Party
Wed. Nov 9
2-5PM  (new winter schedule)