Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

To answer both of you, build yourself with cheap, basic materials instead of 
buying the latest and greatest kit or sitebuilt by so called experts. I've 
seen hoophouses being built, but I don't have that kind of money or a crew of 
volunteers. And they have some drawbacks. I assume commercial ones do recover 
their investment over time. I recover in three months selling. Folks have 
made their own greenhouses for a long time, but 6 mil UV plastic is a fairly 
recent development.

Now I don't make triple wall polycarbonate for tomatoes in the dead of 
winter. That's simply uneconomical north of a certain latitude, or a very 
expensive hobby. I'm not a carpenter (no blueprints) but it helps to have 
some experience with lumber. I frame with 2x4s, deck screws and hurricane 
ties, and cover with 6 mil UV roll plastic. Also used a lot of cheaper cull 
lumber from Home Depots. Straight salvage would work too. They make a little 
plastic strip on a spool that I staple through the strip and plastic into the 
wood, called Polytack. 3/8 staples in an electric staple gun hold it for 
three or four years till the UV plastic itself starts to degrade. I make a 
simple frame with rafters 4 feet apart and cover one section at a time.

As tears develop over time I can replace single sections as needed. I go 
through a lot of staples. Need I mention it needs a good ladder. They have to 
stand up against 50+ winds here so I triangle brace inside, and anchor the 
whole thing with treated posts in holes cemented in. All these approaches 
might vary with the builder and some can certainly do better than I. Working 
by myself, and I'm 66, it does take time, and you probably won't do it on 
weekends. Starting on a small scale is wise. Draw the framing on graph paper 
or something.

Photo attached shows framing with raised beds. Foreground peppers with heavy 
branches tied up with clothesline.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net



*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 3/13/2010 at 3:51 PM Debbie McDonald wrote:

>Can you tell me how?
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>________________________________
>From: Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
>To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
>Sent: Sat, March 13, 2010 2:23:12 PM
>Subject: [Livingontheland] Greenhouse project promotes self-sufficiency
>
>
>Sorry to rain on their parade, but we can't all get big grants. And at
>those costs, the food grown is too expensive to eat ... Good thing I can
>build two 48-foot greenhouses for only a few hundred and easily get the
>payback in one market season.
>
>

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