One issue I've been discussing with some of my fellow Master Gardeners is "What do you do during the winter months?" The consensus seems to be that we are all busy ordering catalogs and planning for spring. A few of us start seeds indoors. I personally, got very adventurous this year, and put up a mini hoop-house over one of the raised beds in my vegetable garden. I planted some cool season vegetables - collard greens, Swiss chard, turnips, spinach and carrots. The carrots are left over from summer - they have been growing slowly, most likely they were started too late in the spring, and being a cool season veg, they were not happy with the warm wet weather we had.
I sowed the seeds for the collards, chard, spinach and turnips in early September. We still had some very warm weather, and unfortunately the spinach and chard did not do well. I had a few chard seedlings come up and none of the spinach. The turnips however, really took! And the collards started out well, until the insects got to them.
Even though my crops were more sparse than I had anticipated, I decided to go to the local home improvement center and picked up 6 lengths 1/2" PVC pipes, 1 length of 3/4" PVC and a roll of 4 mil plastic sheeting, and construct my little hoop-house.
To begin the hoop-house, I had my Dad cut some salvaged re-bar into 18" lengths. There were 10 pieces in all. I drove the re-bar stakes halfway into the ground just to the outside of the raised bed frame, equidistant, down each side. Then, carefully, I drove one end of the 1/2" PVC pipe over the re-bar, and down into the soil about 3". With some ease, I bent the pipe over the bed and down over the re-bar. Once the arch was made, I pressed each side of the PVC until the top of the arch was the height I desired. I continued this until I had 5 "ribs" along the bed. I used the 6th PVC as the top rail, which I tied underneath the center of each rib. The plastic sheeting went over it, anchored with bricks along the sides and ends. I cut the 3/4" PVC into 3-4" pieces, that I split down the middle, removing a sliver about 1/8" wide, to make cuffs for holding the sheeting down. Carefully - and this was the most difficult part of the process - I slid the cuffs over the sheeting and arches. One near the top and one at the bottom of each rib. Where the top rail hung over at the ends, I also put a cuff. And my hoop-house was done!
It has been keeping my little crop of veg nice and warm - even with the 6" of snow we had last week! They are still growing and doing very well. I do not need to water too much, as the plastic sheeting keeps in the moisture. I water thoroughly every two weeks, when the condensation on the inside of the plastic sheeting has decreased. The soil is still warm, and the plants are happy!
My next project will be starting seeds indoors with seeds harvested from some of my clients' gardens as well as from my own garden.
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