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market-farming - Re: Winter Lettuce

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  • From: "Laura G. Weishaupt" <lgw AT fast.net>
  • To: "market farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Winter Lettuce
  • Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 08:52:45 -0400


We started digging our raised beds early last spring, about third week of March. The neighbors probably thought we were nuts. (on any given day they're not far from wrong)

We made mini hoop houses for 2 beds. The beds are about 3ft wide and 15-18 ft long. I cut pieces of 3/4 in PVC about 18" long and angled one end to make stakes. Those are placed about 30 inches apart on both sides of the bed. The I cut lengths of CPVC about 5-6ft long and slipped them into the "stakes" to make hoops. Then the hoops were covered with regular plastic sheet. The edges of the plastic were held down with rocks. We have a lot of rocks. We planted those beds in the beginning of April in eastern PA. and kept digging.

To regulate temperature we opened both ends and rolled the plastic up onto the end hoops. We clipped the plastic onto the hoop with flexible tubing. We used tubing for a sump pump and cut it into about 6 inch lengths, then slit it so it would fit over the plastic and CPVC.

This was all very low tech, low cost, and we didn't know how well it would work, or if it would work at all. Well, it worked great. It held up to wind, snow, rain, rabbits, ect. The height of the hoops was easily adjustable, if one needs to do that. We were harvesting carrots at the beginning of June. All the materials are readily available at any hardware store. This may work for some of you. We don't know how long into the coming months we'll be able to extend our growing. We're about to find out.

Sincerely,
Laura






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