Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dan Conine <dconine@bertramwireless.com>]

I'm with Joel Salatin on this one: I think "PVC" stands for 
"Photo-Volatile Crap".
Not recommended for anything outdoors, and unless you like picking up 
little pieces of plastic all the time, don't use it. Metal conduit or 
water pipe may cost a little more, but worth it in the long run. By the 
time you get done monkeying around with pvc parts and failures, you can 
spend a little money on a hoophouse kit.

I recommend Farmtek. Watch for sale offers and you can get a decent deal 
that is easy to put together. http://www.farmtek.com

MAYBE use pvc for the inside hoophouse setup if you are going to do the 
double setup. Then it is protected from wind and snow and at least some 
of the UV.

The hog panel idea also works very well for small setups. Tape all the 
sharp edges first, though.
I also recommend planting some solid poles for your ends on bigger 
hoophouses. The drive-through idea with soft end panels is nice, but 
winds are relentless once something starts flopping around, and you 
can't get out and fix it in the middle of a storm.

Dan
Nature Creek Farm
Belgium,Wisconsin

> Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:40:06 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Winter  crops
> To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> Message-ID: <291391.13138.qm@web36511.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I am sure that most of you know that a hoophouse of PVC pipe and a plastic sheet works great, also.  
>    
>   Coleman in ME uses a hoophouse inside a bigger hoophouse.
>    
>   Ken 
>
>