Hoop Houses

In our attempt to provide as many home grown edibles as possible, we’ve been expanding our gardening space.  But why just expand the space available when we could also extend the time available for growing?

Technically we bought a used greenhouse from a friend of ours, but it is still in pieces.  Not just because we haven’t had time to put it up, but because we’re still debating on where to put it.  So since Paul put in two raised beds right in front of the house last year, I figured that would be perfect setup for hoop houses.  The framework was already there, we just needed to attach hoops & plastic sheeting.

 We used ½” PVC water pipe and ¾” clamps to hold the hoops in place.  I had an extra sheet of plastic sold as a painter’s drop cloth from my room painting projects last year and it fit perfectly.  Now I just have to figure out how I’m going to attach it to the frame and beds.  In the mean time the plastic went back into the garage. 

Luckily I didn’t figure it out yesterday because it probably would have been blown across to the next county.  The wind picked up last night and we had a storm come through early this morning.  So we went from an eighty-five degree day yesterday to a damp and fifty degrees this afternoon.

Rhiannon and I had a hot cup of tea with our honey oat bread and jam for lunch.  And I broke down and started a small fire in the wood stove to take the chill out of the air.  

I suppose I'll be complaining about the heat next week.