Victory Garden

High Tunnel with sides raised

As I wrote in a previous blog gardening was do or die this year. When I first moved to my house in the high country some 17 years ago I immediately built two 8 x 4 raised beds and proceeded to provide for not must me but neighbors. What I could raise was a bit more limited than in other areas I have lived in because of the climate but we had a solid 90 to 100 day growing season. Last frost was generally around the 1st of June.

The great news was with temps seldom above 82 F in the summer lettuce and spinach did not bolt. I dreamed of an attached green house that would provide passive solar for winter months and allow me to get a start on plants to go outside in June. As I planned the green house grew and when construction began in 2007 the beds had to be moved. Long establish herbs like Tarragon had to be moved and did not survive their temporary containers. Despite efforts there was no gardening in 2007 or 2008. Two 4 x 4 beds just didn't seem to produce and last freezes seemed to have moved to the middle of June.

Low tunnel with sides up and beginning of high tunnel supports

This April I decided to give it one last go. I up and moved the beds so I could put a tunnel over them. The low tunnel worked fantastically. Plants were protected from late freezes (well, early freezes because I planted a full two weeks early). And with the night cover and day protection when the weather was foul the lettuce and assorted greens just grew faster. I decided to go ahead with the high tunnel.

As Youtube videos, articles, and my friend in Utah explained, the low tunnel could raise the temp four degrees and the high tunnel over the low another four for an eight degree gain. More importantly it seems combined with the raised beds the ground temps are raised. Tomatoes want 55 F ground temperature.



Side ribs up
Center pole and end ribs up. Almost time for plastic


S hooks at base of ribs for tie downs


Detail of roping over high tunnel

During the high desert cool nights the low tunnel plastic can be pulled over the beds and the high tunnel plastic put down. In the bow ends I have another raised small bed with tomatoes and a couple container gardens of squash. This year these are experiments. Between the two raised beds I have potatoes which are suppose to be a cold weather crop but their leaves were very easily damaged by our late frosts. My last couple years of gardening were just lettuce, greens, carrots, garlic and onions.

Bountiful crop

An extra bonus with the tunnels has been protection from spring winds and hail of our summer thunderstorms. More than one lush bed of lettuce has been shredded by hail. When I first tuned into the polytunnels being used on farms I figured it was a spring and fall thing. Supposedly you can extend your growing season two weeks either side. A hard fought for 90 days to 130 is well worth raising and lowering plastic morning and night.

But the tunnels cut down on watering and also seem to make plants grow bigger and faster. That is probably due to the warmer soil. I try to cover up before the temps of the day fall off, holding in the warmth.

Comments

  1. Ien in the KootenaysJune 24, 2012 at 10:15 AM

    You are such an accomplished handywoman! It looks great. How deep are your beds and what did you fill them with? It looks very
    densely planted.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JBinford-BellJune 24, 2012 at 10:43 AM

    I filled them with the dark peat soil from the bottom of my property mixed with mushroom compost, potting soil, and peat/sheep mixture,

    Beds are about a foot deep. I did 2 feet at one time and it is hard to get it all mixed and renewed yearly. Yes it is probably too densely planted but I sowed seed on the basis of what used to come up and survive before the tunnels. Have been trying to thin as I harvest baby greens but today I just went through and pulled some stuff up.

    Next year less of everything especially the lettuce. It has been an adjustment since things grow faster and more lushly with the tunnels. And I will be able to grow things that I could not grow before.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ien in the KootenaysJune 24, 2012 at 11:54 AM

    That sounds like a great mix. My soil is so poor. I used floating row cover in the main garden, with removable hoops, and the greenhouse is the joy of my life.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip...
Read more

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r...
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f...
Read more