Market Farming

[Lucy Owsley <goodows AT infinet.com>]

Marie,

Your idea sounds good. I would put boards or rocks or what ever on the
ends so you can open up the ends on warm and/or sunny days and close
them on cold ones. You might want to get a cheapo thermometer so you
know how warm it is in the green tractor.

We did two small hoop houses this "winter". Both were planted in the
fall -one in September and one in November and both have been producing
our spring mix for the past two weeks. We did get greens out of the
September planted house up to Christmas and than due to lack of light
and some cold weather things quit growing. Around jan 10th they started
growing with the lengthening days. The past week it has been spring like
here in SW Ohio so now everything is hitting stride.

The house planted in September is way ahead of the Nov. planted house as
far as the Mizuna and arugula go but the lettuce was not irrigated (it
was a busy time and that bed was forgotten by accident) and the weather
was dry so it got stressed and is just now beginning to grow normally.
The house planted in November was irrigated (netafim drip hose) and that
lettuce is at the same stage as the older stuff.

Last week we planted pac choi and more salad greens in both hoophouses.
and all are germinating beautifully, even the 4 year old seed (well, not
as beautifully...).

Now our houses are 12' x 25' and oriented north to south. One is based
sort of on Eliot Coleman's design for moveable greenhouse. It is made
from lumber we had laying around the farm with metal conduit for the
ribs. The North end is 1/2" ply wood with a door and the back end has a
window in it. The whole thing is covered in 6 mil UV stable plastic
(from Nolt's Produce Supply in PA) that is permanently nailed to the
structure. To keep the house grounded in high winds we drove stakes
through the footers into the ground plus have guy lines inside and out
attached to 18" stakes driven in the ground. the thing has stayed put
through 40 mph sustained winds and 75 mph gusts (though it gets caved in
a bit on the windward side in extreme winds)

The other house is a lot like a huge row cover on high hoops. The hoops
are made of 1/2" conduit. 2 hoops are attached together with brackets so
the legs cross on both sides and the curved top are about 2' apart (I
can send pictures of this if anyone wants to see this, just email me and
I will send them). The house itself is made from a series of these
double hoops. The hoops go over rebar driven into the ground so that
about 18" is sticking out and when enough hoops are set up you take
greenhouse plastic and put on the skeleton. The plastic is either dug in
the ground (the best way if winds are a problem) or rocks are put on the
edges. It takes about 1000lbs of rocks to secure a 20' house. The nice
thing about this house is you can take the plastic off without
disturbing the crop. We like this design for early tomatoes because we
can remove the whole house in May when it gets too hot to have them
under plastic. That and it cost us under $300 to make 2 50' x 12'
houses. Oh to vent the house you just open both ends and prop up the
plastic with a fence stake or something.


Lucy Goodman-Owsley
Boulder Belt Organics
New Paris, OH
http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/boulderbeltcsa

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It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong
                                                                        
Voltaire (1694-1778)