Hoop House Construction - Part I

This is sooooo exciting and great fun to see the progress of this project. Since Mother Nature has gotten the best of us for the past couple of years, i.e. no or limited tomatoes, little or no peppers and no eggplant! This year we decided to try a couple of temporary hoop houses. We call these hoop houses because we won't be regulating the temperature other than to lift the sides if it should get too hot inside of them.



This picture is of our small garden. We are going to put the two temporary hoop houses here. This garden dries out first, so we are able to prepare the soil earlier. We tilled up last year's "residual" (technical term for weeds and dead veggies), then spread and tilled in 4 yds of Cedar Grove Compost.







Then we laid down 4 ft wide weed cloth from Gempler's. This will serve us well for the season, i.e. we won't need to weed around the base of the plastic pipe. Oh, I might mention, that the white thing on a pole stuck in the raised bed on the right ... it's one of our organic pest control methods. It's a net for capturing cabbage moths. Although we did get a lot of exercise, we're going to supplement netting with remay.

This is the spot for our 10 foot wide hoop house. It will be used for a variety of tomatoes. The tomatoes will be planted directly into the ground and there will be two 60 foot rows.



Three foot rebar posts are then pounded two feet into the ground. One foot of rebar is above ground.

A 20 foot plastic PVC pipe is then bent from one rebar post to another rebar 10 feet across from the first. These two end pvc pipes are 60 feet apart.

And, here we go! 16 - 20 foot PVC pipes forming the skeleton of our first hoop house. We still need to put the ropes across the top, the tie downs in and the plastic over the top. We'll also be laying weed cloth down inside the hoop house.

Nice job, Doug and Sara. Now if the wind will die down enough to put up the plastic, we'll be in great shape. More to come ... and you have a great day!

April on the Farm, Part II

Welcome to Part II!

Here are our six raised beds that were built by Doug and I in 2005. This picture was taken this evening, looking North. The beds are built out of concrete blocks and the blocks are filled with sand. They are about 20 feet long and 3 feet wide. For not being mortared, except for the sand, they are holding up really well. A draw back of these raised beds is remembering to keep them WATERED well during the summer months. They tend to dry out pretty fast. In the background is our small garden with compost ready to spread. We're putting two temporary hoop houses in this small garden.

Planted in our raised beds are carrots, beets, spinach, radishes, lettuce, parsley, chives, fennel, dill and cilantro.

This picture was taken looking northeast. The red carport is going to be moved and replaced with a permanent high tunnel and on the other side we will be building more raised beds. We (Tammy and Sara and I) spent today cleaning out all the dandelions around the beds. They look beautifu!

Blog to you soon,

Char

April on the Farm, Part I

Welcome to our first blog!

It's been a long, long winter! Glad spring is finally here. And with spring comes new adventures! Gosh, I can't believe that I am actually setting up a blog and will be able to share our farm happenings with you. (Thank you Timi for the encouragement and support! This first blog is dedicated to you, my friend!)

So, what's happening here on the farm? Well, we're getting ready for another Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) season. We're finding it extremely rewarding growing food organically, sustainably, and locally for our family and friends. (And reasonably priced.)


From year to year it's been a surprise as to which vegetables will like the weather that we are having ... and which need to be replanted. Which can actually backfire ... in one picking last year we had 90 lbs of slicing cucumbers because I replanted three times. It took a long time for the soil to warm up!


This year to help our plants deal with mother nature, we are going to install a couple of temporary hoop houses in one of our gardens and a permanently placed high tunnel for vegetable starts.


We will keep you updated on our veggies' journey through the season.


See April on the Farm, Part II for pictures of our raised beds.

We (Tammy and I) have been working really hard to get the farm cleaned up, and (cough, cough) weed free! Well, maybe not completely weed free! But close. Since our produce is certified organic our tolerance for weeds is high.

And Sara started this week too. Just this afternoon we must have "doug" up 14 lbs of morning glory roots!

On to another day! Check out the pictures in Part II!