Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

I've seen the open side setup in commercial nurseries, but spring  winds
are a problem we can't afford to ignore, esp with tomato plants.  Where I
am I have to arrange ventilation some other way. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. 
--Henry David Thoreau 
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/21/2006 at 9:20 AM Claudia & Linda wrote:

>A tip for building greenhouses:  I built a greenhouse attached to the
>south
>side of my house this spring using the wire panels called "hog panels" or
>"cattle panels" and available at most farm stores.  They are usually 16'
>long and you can get them in heights varying from 3' to 5'.  They're
>flexible so you can bend them into a hoop shape for hoop houses.   To make
>my greenhouse I arched these panels out from my house, nailing one end of
>them to plates I attached to the house and the other end to railroad ties.
>I covered them with Visqueen plastic sandwiched between lathing.  When the
>weather got hot I removed the plastic on the sides.  The plastic on the
>wire
>panels, I had attached so I could just roll it up to allow south breezes
to
>enter but still keep the top shaded.  Then I planted cucumbers and melons
>and let them grow up over the wire panels for the summer.  This has worked
>wonderfully to shade and cool this side of the house and make a nice area
>for starting fall seedling.  Total cost of an approximately 14x12 solar
>greenhouse was about $105.  I haven't gone thru a winter with this
>greenhouse yet but if I need to, there's plenty of room to put a small,
>woodburning stove in it and I left a way to vent such a stove just in
case.
>Also, this greenhouse is built over two of the house window; in the early
>spring we used it quite satisfactorily to warm the house during the day.
>
>Claudia
>