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  • From: Leigh Hauter <bullrunfarm AT hughes.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] hoophouses and snow
  • Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:54:11 -0500

Well, it just happened and I'm sick to my stomach.

I never thought, living here in Virginia, that I would had to worry about the weight of snow on my hoops or greenhouse.

That was until this morning.

Around here, 12 inches of snow falling in one storm is something that happens maybe once in a decade. In the thirty years we've lived on our farm, we've never had as much as two feet of snow fall in one storm. We've had maybe a total of four or five storms of over one foot.

But this weekend we were hit with one storm that dropped 33 inches in just over 24 hours.

So, this morning, when I was out with the tractor pushing more of the waist high snow off of our road I looked across the field where we have planted six 96 foot long hoops and there it was.

Four of the hoops were on the ground. Over the night four houses went down.

When I finally managed to push a path across the field to take a closer look what I saw seemed almost like it was something planned. Each three piece hoop had bent in the same place. about four feet up, on each side, at the joint, bent straight down to the ground.

In other words, out of 100 hoops, or 200 joints, all of them failed in exactly the same way, in the same place, under the weight.

While two other hoops, the same size, but manufactured by a different company with a different design (two piece hoops), withstood the load. Additionally, our greenhouse, 30 X 96 feet, put up in a different location but receiving close to the same amount of snow, suffered no damage.

So what lesson is to be learned? I think there are several of them: The first one is the simple one, Greenhouse plastic is mighty strong. You would have thought it would have ripped under the load of 33" of snow before the medal frame went down.

Second, those once in a hundred year storms, if it hasn't happened lately, might happen sooner than expected. (especially with this chaotic and unpredictable weather we've been experiencing lately).

Another lesson? Well, cost does matter. Saving a couple thousand dollars on something like a greenhouse or tractor even if the risk is small might not be a savings after all. Bargains aren't always bargains.

And what does the weather forecast say? Another foot of snow, something that happens only once a decade, is supposed to start falling tomorrow afternoon. This means we'll have had three 12 inch plus snow storms this winter. Which means, if I remember my college probability class, this winter is one in a thousand. I know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow morning, as soon as its light enough to work --- shoveling as much of that snow as I can off of my greenhouse and my two remaining hoops.




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