Tag Archives: hoop house

A New Hoophouse!

June 27, 2009   Agriculture, Cold Weather Growing, Daily Farm Life, Garden, Greenhouse, high tunnel, hoop house, Growing Vegetables, Homestead, Maine, Small Farming, Winter Farming, Winter vegetable production

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I bought a 1600 sq ft hoophouse this afternoon.  When I called about it a few days ago I’d missed it by a couple of hours.  The seller kept my name and number just in case and fortunately for me, just in case happened.  It will be delivered in a few hours! This brings our covered space up to 2,800 sq ft (not counting the seedling house).  I think that might be enough.  I’ll spend part of next week planning what to plant, the layout and  crunching some numbers to see what I might be able to come up with for a true profit in the first year.  It will pay for itself easily. Here’s the ad:

Greenhouse is all disassembled at this time. Included in this package are the hoops, purlins, drive legs, Poly covering, poly pipe with watering drops, several wire top benches and an amount of concrete blocks for support of the benches.

With delivery included, $1,400.  I was expecting to pay $3,500 for 1,000 sq ft. As soon as the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are done I’ll pull the plants and we’ll start building.  It will go up as two houses rather than its original 88′ house.  I’ll fill the houses with cold weather greens for the winter and tomatoes and eggplant next summer.

We secured financing for a tractor right after it was sold yesterday.  It was sold pending financing.  Being able to say “I have cash” helped me get the hoophouse today.  I’m hoping the same sentence lands the tractor in a few days!

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New Math

September 17, 2008   Agriculture, Cold Weather Growing, Daily Farm Life, Food, Garden, Greenhouse, high tunnel, hoop house, Growing Vegetables, Homestead, Poultry, Winter Farming

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One Hose + One Dandruff Shampoo bottle + Three dogs = One wet woman.  I didn’t wake up planning to scrub the mutts but they’re sort of clean now.  I took mercy on them and did a half-assed job.  The water from the well is 54* right now so I didn’t wash between toes and behind ears well.  Each day this week is a little cooler than the day before right down to waking up this Friday morning to temps in the 20′s.  This is their last outdoor torture bath of the year.  Did you know cheap store brand dandruff shampoo kills fleas just as well and maybe faster than expensive flea shampoo?  They’ll get their last dose of flea drops for the year tomorrow.  They’ll be bathed again after the ground freezes.  Being working dogs, they get dirty.

I’m mixing it up in the bigger gh to keep myself amused.  Rows run vertically now (just go with it, maybe they’re horizontal and I don’t know!). They’re horizontal for the winter.  It makes it easier for me to keep what’s where straight.  And…it amuses me.  The smaller gh will be the same old same old it’s been for four years because I’m limited by size.  It’s too small to shake things up much.  The seedling house is going to be packed full of containers and cold frames.  I have a few ideas I need to work out a little more before I go into detail.

The meat chickens are thriving.  They’re healthy, growing well and good foragers unlike last year’s disasterous batch from the much-loved (except by me) ever-popular (I was never in the popular group) McMurray.  We had high winds left over from Ike two days ago.  The cover was blown off and landed on one of the birds.  It’s heavy mill felt.  I didn’t put it together until last night.  I thought he was ok when I took the cover off but it was dark at the time I didn’t look closely enough.  If he doesn’t recover well by Sunday I’ll fry him.  Literally.

Are you going to the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine, this Saturday?  I’d love to meet you!

The jars above are filled with tomatillo salsa.  It has tomatillos, onions, jalepenos, red bell pepper, lime juice and cilantro. Each ingredient is “about that much.”  Make it the way you like it. I roasted the tomatillos first thing this morning.  It releases most of the juice in the tomatillos.  The salsa isn’t at all watery.  I simmer it long enough to make the salsa hot, pack it in jars to 1/2″ from the top, and hot water bath it for 15 minutes.  The last of 11 pints is processing now.  I keep saying I’m not making anymore but Steve eats a lot of it so I’ll make at least one more batch.

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Hoop House

April 24, 2008   Agriculture, Greenhouse, high tunnel, hoop house, Homestead, Winter Farming

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This is what happens when you forget to take the poly off a conduit hoop house before a heavy snow storm.

I hope to tackle this over the weekend.  Every time I see it I want to kick myself.

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A tractor, some water and a greenhouse

April 12, 2008   Agriculture, Daily Farm Life, Garden, Greenhouse, high tunnel, hoop house, Growing Vegetables, Homestead, Vegetable Garden, Winter Farming, Winter vegetable production

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Steve and I went to visit Kristin and my parents, to Lowe’s to price out the new greenhouse and out to supper today. On the way to Bangor I gave in and agreed to buy a tractor. He’s wanted one for a long time. “WHY do we NEED a tractor?”

Steve said, “It’s a man thing.”

I wasn’t anymore convinced then than I have been for the last three or four years that he’s been campaigning for a tractor. Then he started listing all of the things we can do and in the end I agreed it’s a good idea. Yarding logs (firewood) and other non-farming projects are a lot easier with a tractor than an ATV. Some things I’m considering (expansions) are possible only if I have access to a tractor when I need it. Right now I’m at the mercy of someone else’s schedule. It’s usually ok but ok won’t be good enough for what I might do.

We priced parts for the next greenhouse. I’ll write about that separately another time. And we priced out the siding for the barn. If we order it from a small business in the Amish community (in Smyrna) we’ll pay almost half the price Lowe’s charges per foot, they’ll cut it to our specific lengths and we’ll support a small business.

I’ve mentioned being nervous about this year. I feel much better about it thanks to so much help from Steve. The only thing I can’t control now is the weather.

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Bourbon Red Turkeys

October 9, 2007   Homestead, Poultry

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Time for a poult update. Seven weeks olds. They’re finally confident with me and will come running when I approach the hoop house. I’ve plucked them off perches and carried them to the hoop house so many evenings they must know I’m not going to hurt them. A wild guess – three hens, three toms.

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