Monday, March 26, 2012

More on the Hoop House

We are expecting possible storms these next few days, and in fact, tonight when I got home I hurried to cut more grass, because it felt like it was going to storm.  I just looked... the waning moon is still glowing brightly and Jupiter is shining near it... but to the east it looks cloudy.

It was a touch windy tonight, and Keith decided to go ahead and finish weighing down the sides of the hoop house.


Here is a little closer look at how he did it.

He used the drill to drill holes in the landscape timbers, then drove the spikes through timber and plastic.  We used those same kinds of spikes to make the garden beds last year.


Sorry about how dark this picture turned out, but you can see how Keith tucked the ends on this side... it's the east side.  He will build a door in the middle, and a vent will be put in above on both ends.


Here's a better look at the interior.  We're planting tomatos in the whiskey barrels as a kind of experiment this year.  We have used containers before, and had great success with them.  The concrete stepping blocks were given to us, and we are putting peppers down the other side.  I'm hoping I'll get a potting bench at the far end.

The last picture tonight is of one of the onion beds... I swear they came up two inches since yesterday afternoon!


Last night I found a dog tick on me, and today another.  I have NEVER found ticks this early... I really, really think signs are pointing to a hard summer.  We treated all the dogs tonight for ticks/mosquitos/fleaswith K9 Advantix II.... and I will keep the grass cut as I can.... so the little ones don't surf through it "catching" ticks right and left.



5 comments:

  1. I hope to get one built before the end of the year. Looks like you all did a great job! How big is it and what was the cost?

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    1. Hey this is Keith ... it really wasn't too expensive. Total was around $200. It is 10 ft wide by 20 ft long. The hoops are made out of PVC pipe. Two pieces of 3/4" PVC attached together with an 18" length of 1" PVC. Had to sand the ends of the 3/4" PVC a bit so they would fit into the 1" pipe. We laid it out on the ground and drove steel stakes in leaving about 8" above the ground. Take two pieces of the 3/4" PVC connected together with a piece of 1" pipe and bend it over and anchor it on the stakes. Then take a piece and put it right down the middle attaching it to the hoops with duct tape at each hoop. Then I built a wooden frame with 2x4s on each end to attach the plastic to and to provide a frame for a door. Original plan was to have a door on each end, but decided to just put one door in. The plastic was bought at Home Depot paint department and is 6 mil heavy duty plastic sheeting. I bought a role that was 20 ft by 200 ft so there was plenty of extra. We cut off a piece, then stretched it over the frame, connecting it to the end frames with cap nails. Then we used landscape timbers with 12" landscaping spikes to anchor the edges of the plastic to the ground. Had a good thunderstorm this morning and it held up just fine.

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  2. You have a lovely hoop house. If it was in Maine it would be a kite. We have had strong winds over the last couple of days. Cant wait to see your maters. Hope they grow healthy and plentiful.

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  3. The mosquitos are trying to tote us off. Wasn't cold enough to kill any of them.

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  4. We've had mosquitos and I pulled a tick off me a few weeks ago. Yeay. This will be quite a buggy Spring and Summer, I think. The Winter was just too mild.

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