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[rayzentz AT aim.com]

Thanks for the info, Gene.
 
Ray 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 11:38:14 EST
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Seed starting methods




> Do you replace the plastic sheeting every year?   How does it do in windy 
> conditions?  


Yes, the UV destroys the plastic in about 10 months.  The deal with the 
expensive UV resistant plastics is that in commercial operations the labor 
costs 

would eat them up replacing the covers every year.  Here it's an hour's work 
of 
our own labor and so we could never justify the cost of the better plastic.

This design is #3.  No's 1 and 2 blew away.  This has withstood 45 mph winds, 
about as bad as it ever gets here and even that is very rare.  The trick is 
that the structure is not rigid.  The central poles and post poles are 18" in 
the ground but loose filled so that they can move a little.  Around the 
perimeter are 3' long  1 1/4" pvc attached firmly to the rails with those 
omega-shaped conduit straps and then the main ribs sit in those loosely:  
thus:

http://www.geocities.com/one7thfarmer/tubes.JPG

(The fencing is only there to keep the goats from punching though the 
plastic, if you don't have goats, you don't need it).   Also where the ribs 
pass 

through another omega-clamp at the ridge, they are loose.

The result is that the the whole greenhouse can move in the wind, but just 
not very mucy.  It' s sort of a Buddhist arrangement, recall how the Buddha 
heard a musician giving instruction to his pupil which set him on the road to 
enlightenment when the musician said, "If the string is too tight, it will 
break. 
If the string s too loose, it will not play."   Same with greenhouses.   Same 
with life.

>How cold does it get outside and inside the hoophouse where you are?

On the working benches, if it gets zero outside, it gets zero inside.  The 
idea here is not to keep a heated greenhouse that is warm all the time, but 
rather to make use of trapped sunlight (and therefore heat) when it is 
available 

with the AVERAGE temperature in the greenhouse being well above the AVERAGE 
outside temperature.

For example, if you plant tomato seeds in your house and keep them, say, 
above the refrigerator where it is always warm, they will germinate in seven 
days 
with 90% germination.  In my greenhouse with its fluctuating temps and 
liability for a real chill, the tomato seeds may take 20 days to germinate 
and 
then 
at a rate of 75% (although I ususally do better than this).  Fine.  That's 
good 
enough for me.  I want a lot of tomato plants and I'm not in a hurry.

I watch the weather reports like a religious devotion.  If the weather is 
going to turn freezing, I don't water the seedlings for a couple of days 
before 
since full hydration of the cells causes the most damage.  In those few and 
short spells of really freezing weather from the end January on, I take down 
the 

flats, stack them in the center of the greenhouse, cover them with a plastic 
drop cloth, and light a kerosene lamp.  Gene's idea of a crock pot would work 
even better, but I have no electricity there.  When the cold passes, I put 
things back on the benches again.

By late April or early May, it is 100 degrees or more routinely in the 
greenhouse.  By June I cut out the end pannels and it will still get 120.   
So I 

grow some peppers, eggplants, and sweetpotatoes in buckets and barrels in 
there.  

I grow those things in the garden too, but the greenhouse plantings hedge the 
bet.

A neighbor had me build one of these for him and in the summer he uses it as 
a lumber drying kiln.

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