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market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] Hoop House

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  • From: Allan Balliett <igg AT igg.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] Hoop House
  • Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 18:44:08 -0500

In his Winter Growing Manual, he states that he keeps one house just above
freezing - calls it his 32 degree house. He uses it to grow crops that are
more tender, and also for post-harvest handling of his produce (water lines
don't freeze, and neither does the farmer and his product)


Alison - I think that the Winter Growing Manual is now outdated. I've heard that in lectures this past season E.C. has said he's dropped inner tunnels and using low end heating in all of his houses. I'm wondering if there is a new edition of the Winter Manual that covers this


We have found that the soil has a huge thermal mass and acts as a flywheel
for temperatures for us. We had night temperatures of -3 to -4 two weeks
ago, and most of our crops sailed right through. The mesclun right now is
gorgeous!


What size is your house? I hear that this will happen in a 96x40 house, for example, but in our 20x48 houses, we had lots of stuff burned UNDER INNER TUNNELS when we got temps down to 6above!! Lost stuff in coldframes, also. (Interestingly enough, around the sides of the coldframes. I alway thought the cold would 'come from above' but it clearly comes through the sides, hence the recommendations by some experts to use solid insulation on the sidewalls of 4-Season coldframes.)

-Allan






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