Homestead mailing list

[rayzentz AT aim.com]

AAAAAUUUGGGHHHH.   My deepest and humblest apologies, both of you, for the 
mix up.  Thanks, James.
 
Ray (feeling stupid now) 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:31:02 -0600
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Seed starting methods


That was from James, Ray.

>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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