Sara's Garden MarketSustainable Living, Gardening, Flowers, and Food

So, my Mom kept pestering me to post pictures of the greenhouse I had put around my vegetable garden. And now it’s down due to high winds we are having here. 🙁 I don’t think I got any pictures of it at all.

The Weather:

We are having a 2 day wind storm (rain too, but predominantly wind.) started out with sustained wind of 20 mph with gusts to 40mph. We are supposed to be getting sustained winds of 40-50mph and gusts over 60mph. That is like being in the middle of a huge thunderstorm! I just checked to see how high it was now and it’s only at 26mph sustained and it is hard to walk, branches are down out of trees and it is miserable to drive. Other than a bad thinderstorm I really cannot remember wind like this over such a long time. I guess we are in a super low pressure right now. The lowest air pressure ever recorded for the state.

What the Greenhouse Was:

In short, it had 3 ribs of 1″ PVC pipe which were made up of 3 10-foot pipes with connectors. With 2 shepherd hooks (for hanging baskets) supporting the middle of 2 of the pipes.  Then a sheet over the top and front. I had to keep reinforcing the packing tape that I put on and finally found that if I taped the PVC pipes to my garden fence, weighed the sides with several bricks, and closed the back side with a separate sheet of plastic it was pretty sturdy.

I contacted the University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension service and research facility to talk with them about my structure and they said that sounded good to them. 🙂 They build stuff with PVC all the time.

Things to do differently next time:

• Trim the large bush on one side of the garden so I can get a tighter fit between the backing and the main sheet of plastic.
• Get more bricks for the sides.
• Tape the pipes and the plastic along the pipes better.
• Get thicker PVC. (The 1″ ones actually bent over in the wind this morning.)
• Get at least one more hanging basket shepherd hook to support the 3rd pipe.
• Do not attach it to the trellis (this also was crashed down from the wind this morning. This may require a 4th pipe to place flush with the back wall – which is the side of my garage.)

That’s about all. It was working out pretty nicely. It was about 12 degrees higher than air temperature on colder nights, and at least 20 degrees warmer than air temp on warm days and in the sun. I did get a lot more produce because of it. The neighbor ripped out her garden over 2 weeks ago because of 2 frosts we had. I still had green beans, tomatoes, and summer squash coming in.

Plan for the Greenhouse Going Forward:

I think it’s going to snow here tonight which means that there really wouldn’t be a point to putting the greenhouse back up this season. I might get out there in March or February depending on how much snow we have at that time to try to extend the season on the front side as well.

If I find any pictures I will post them. 🙂 Wish us luck with all this wind, hoping the damage in the morning isn’t too bad. It is Tuesday afternoon and it’s just supposed to get worse until Wednesday night.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sara

Hi everyone,

The fall plans are in effect! First order of business is building PVC pipe supports for the plastic sheeting that will become the temporary greenhouse I will be using to extend my seasons! The over night low yesterday was 45 degrees Fahrenheit so I better get this thing up. Last year we had one early frost mid-September. Never mind the unseasonably warm October we had, or the subsequent 80 degree days. Everything had died in the frost and I lost a good 1.5 months of natural growing season.

I am going to purchase 20′ sections of 1″ or smaller tubing and make some large hoops. I am not quite certain how to secure the plastic to the tubes. So far my ideas are zip-ties (which will rip the plastic over time)  or packing tape (which may not hold up in the freezing and wet of winter and spring. Ideally maybe I don’t have to secure it that well. I have enough to cover a very large area, so maybe draping and securing to the ground with rocks will be enough.

The other project that needs to get done is to move what used to be a nice border of small purple mums. These mums are on the outside, front edge of my veggie garden. They started out the size of a basketball, and are now over 2 feet across! They take up so much room in the front of the garden I am missing out on about 3″ by 10″ section of good soil. So they are being moved to the outside corners of the garden. I have a Victorian fence around the veggie garden with rose bushes in the corners on the inside. The mums will be opposite them on the outside of the garden.

This picture was taken last year. The rabbits has eaten every thing right to the ground. So I went to my local super store and bought this Victorian fencing and lined it with rabbit fencing on the inside. It is the Fort Knox of veggie gardens!

So the roses are on the inside and the mums will be on the outside corners 🙂

When I get it a bit cleaned up and moved around I’ll post more pictures. This year’s garden is 100 times better than this poor sad eaten over one.

So after a fun talk with one of my good friends I have a new plan for the “greenhouse.”

My vegetable garden is up against my garage and has a Victorian fence around it.  So my new plan is to put up plastic awning and curtains that can be rolled back, or rolled down! Picture an awning rolled up in back about 7=8 feet up the garage. When I take it down it will form a lean-to looking slanted green house roof and drape over the fence for support and secure on the out side of the Victorian fencing on the ground with a tent type opening in the middle!

I will use shepherds hooks to have flowers starting and to help support the plastic in the middle. The soil here has been workable for a few months but it gets so cold at night that you can only put certain things in the ground. But with plastic I can start my garden right *in* my garden months earlier and I can extend my growing season by at least a few months in the fall as well!!!!!! We have warm weather until about November but the nights get very cold starting in September.

Last September we had a very early frost and I almost completely lost my fall harvest. No one knew it was coming so there was no opportunity to cover the garden with sheets that night. But we had fabulous weather all through October. But I was so sad because my garden was done. 🙁 This will prevent that entirely!

I will post before and after and also post pics as I build my “greenhouse” as well.

Thanks for stopping by!