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Post by oldmobie on Dec 4, 2015 21:33:19 GMT -5
oldmobie , If you join them side to side you might trap snow between the units. Can you go end to end and extend the peak and have a walk-through? Also the more wall you have in common, the less heat loss. Good call. We don't often get enough snow for that to matter, but it would only take once. The roof could be re-designed, but that would take away some of the convenience of a ready made kit. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 5, 2015 1:21:55 GMT -5
My strengthening consists of:
4X4s nailed to the base.
Connected to the ground (by stakes now, by cement pads after the ground thaws).
2X4 above the door, and across the back wall, screwed to each stud.
two 1/2 pieces of electrical conduit pipe as bottom chords to the rafters.
two diagonal wires at the tops of the walls to keep them from twisting in high winds.
Chains screwed to the windows to keep them from blowing off.
Positive latch to keep the doors from blowing off in high winds.
So far I have put 3 screws in the wall panels: in the center of the panel at 7' high, 4' high, and 2' high. After the snow melts I'll add another at 1". The roof still has snow on it. If it melts before more snow arrives I intend to screw the roof panels in a similar manner with about 3 bolts each. Eventually I want to caulk the panels to minimize heat loss through leaks. Last time I used screws with rubber washers that are used to install roofing panels. This time I used sheet metal screws with a wide head.
Two of these could be built connected peak-to-peak, and easily attached to each other by riveting/screwing a piece of sheet metal between them. There is a rain gutter on the sides, I suppose that the same sort of arrangement could be made. The gutters could be screwed directly to each other, then connect the corners with a piece of sheet metal.
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Post by flowerweaver on Dec 5, 2015 9:18:52 GMT -5
I have been planning to join two Harbor Freight 10 x 12 kits I purchased end-to-end to a central, taller, wider space that overlaps both a bit, that I am going to build from scratch and then put a wall of water swamp cooler at one end that will hopefully pull through the entire thing. Besides reinforcement I'm designing sort of an exoskeleton around it that I can use as a trellis and to drape shade cloth when needed. However, the project is currently on hold pending reimbursement for tornado damage to the kits. It's the last bit of insurance stuff I have left to close out the recovery process. I probably won't get to it until summer of 2016.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 6, 2015 15:03:35 GMT -5
I tend to think that it's not a prudent use of my resources to grow small squash. Because I can produce more pounds of food per acre by growing larger squash. However, people are constantly asking me for smaller squash. And they are willing to pay the same price for small squash as for larger ones, and I can fit more small squash into a truck to go to market. Therefore, I have been half-heartedly working on a small-fruited butternut landrace for years. The last two years I have been putting more effort into the small-fruited moschata squash project. Yesterday, I extracted the seeds from the project. I was displeased with how poorly some of them kept. I discarded those and saved the long keepers. I was very pleased with the taste and color. For example, here is what one of them looked like after it was baked:  I'm nearing enough consistency for small size that I'm willing to show off some of the squash: How about that small seed cavity?  Necked Squash:  Small cheese pumpkin:  Another part of this project that I'm expecting to split off into a separate project next year is to select for dwarfing vines. For example, one of the plants this year had 2" distance between leaf-nodes. A different plant was 3" between leaf nodes. Typical is closer to 6" to 9". The fruits were over 10 pounds though, so they don't belong in the small-fruited landrace. I am delighted to have access again to a great camera!!! |
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Post by Walk on Dec 7, 2015 9:31:35 GMT -5
Joseph, I always like reading what you're up to. The small butternuts seem like they will find happy consumers at market. Small fruits may be also be popular for the ease of harvest and lugging around the garden for gardeners with back problems or cooks that lack hand strength when wrestling fruits in the kitchen. I wanted to share a cautionary tale of what happened to us years ago when we grew Ponca butternuts. We grew them for several years, selecting our seed as we ate the harvest. They weren't hand-pollinated as they were the only moschata we were growing at the time so we could select seed from any fruits we felt like. I thought it would be great to select for big fat necks and small seed cavities and in subsequent years we starting seeing more fruits that were more cylindrical without the bulbous end. Eventually this proved to be a dead-end though because the fruits were not making any viable seeds at all in their tiny seed cavities. We have since started over with the Waltham line and have selected on flavor/earliness and fruits with lots of plump seeds, which happen to be thin husked and quite tasty when roasted. I learned from reading Carol Deppe's books that squash do indeed keep well raw if you hack off an end and that let's you cook up a smaller portion at a time. So for us, we gave up entirely on size selection constraints and concentrated on all the other attributes instead.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 7, 2015 22:28:05 GMT -5
Walk: I worry about the small moschata squash. What if they don't keep well, and that is somehow related to their size? I'm contemplating planting 1/10th acre of them next summer... What if they don't keep well, and I am unaware of it until after I have sold the heck out of them at the farmer's market? Long-keeping is one of the highest priority traits for squash in my garden. I'll watch out for the small seed cavity issue. Two of the ancestors of these squash had fruits that were about the size of a tennis ball, and had only about a half dozen seeds in them. That's too small, and too few seeds.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 13, 2015 17:34:26 GMT -5
Today I built a workbench for the greenhouse. It holds 18 flats. The grid in the back on the floor is where I am intending to plant the true garlic seeds.  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 18, 2015 19:28:45 GMT -5
Since I'm doing things in new ways at new places, I decided to set up the type of winnowing station that I have been day-dreaming about. So I built that today. The fan was a bit iffy, with too much turbulence, so I turned it into a "box-fan". Then I build a feed-bin, and ramp for the seeds to slide down towards the fan. Then I build some bins to catch the seeds. Ramp and fan. It was hot in the greenhouse until the sun set behind the neighbor's trees.  Bins to catch bad seeds, good seeds, and things heavier than the seeds.  Separation was great: Comparing "heavy bin" to "good seed" bin.  It worked great. I should put higher sides around the bin cause there was a lot of bouncing seeds. I should put a tarp on the floor, so that I don't add so many weed seeds to the greenhouse. I started a batch of vinegar a couple days ago. The wild mother is doing great:  |
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Post by philagardener on Dec 18, 2015 20:25:46 GMT -5
Separation was great: Comparing "heavy bin" to "good seed" bin. Looks like the heavy bin is a cash crop!  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 18, 2015 20:49:28 GMT -5
Looks like the heavy bin is a cash crop! hee hee. My seeds aren't usually that valuable...  I was trying to carry too much stuff out to the greenhouse, and I dropped a colander of seeds, and it went careening across my desk, and onto the floor, and every seed ended up spilled, so I gathered them together as best I could, figuring that it would be a good test of the winnowing jig. It can separate corn, beans, & watermelon seeds from squash seeds. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 3, 2016 11:55:19 GMT -5
About 3/4 of my garden is free of snow. I have a few cold-weather crops started in the greenhouse. It's still too early to be starting the hot weather crops, since I won't be planting them out till about June. I've started onions, garlic, favas, peas, medicinals, and herbs.  |
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Post by richardw on Mar 3, 2016 13:39:28 GMT -5
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 3, 2016 14:45:00 GMT -5
I planted about 144 TGS in the floor of the greenhouse in December and January. They haven't germinated yet. I also planted cloves of my three seediest garlic varieties into the floor of the greenhouse, side-by-side. I'm hoping that they will exchange pollen. I planted about 36 garlic cloves in pots. I'm intending to share the plants at the farmer's market. Transplanted garlic doesn't strike me as the best strategy, but some people prefer anything over nothing. I planted two flats of my landrace long-keeping cepa onion seeds. They are intended for my own use, and to share at the farmer's market. They sold well last year. I vowed a few years ago to grow local onions only, and to not be importing sets from Texas. This seems like the best strategy so far. I'd also like to explore growing my own sets in the fall, but so far, I haven't got the timing and weed control right. It's been a steep learning curve, but I'm getting there. One nice thing about haphazard weeding, is that I'm selecting for onions that can grow well in spite of not being weeded. I planted a half flat of Egyptian onions for the farmer's market. I expect to plant more later. The 3.5 flats of favas are for my own use... They should be planted out in the next week or two for best results, and my farmer's market doesn't start for two more months, so there's no point growing favas for market. |
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Post by richardw on Mar 4, 2016 3:48:17 GMT -5
Thats something ive never tried and that is growing onion sets in the autumn,i should give it a go,would it work with a long day type though?.
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Post by reed on Mar 4, 2016 11:29:06 GMT -5
I planted about 144 TGS in the floor of the greenhouse in December and January. They haven't germinated yet. I also planted cloves of my three seediest garlic varieties into the floor of the greenhouse, side-by-side. I'm hoping that they will exchange pollen. I put my TGS inside on the windowsill first of Feb and have two sprouts so far. I have them in cell packs with a couple cells of one being on a heat mat. The sprouts are one on the heat and one at the other end. I'm getting a little worried as I am used to once I see one or two sprouts the others are usually not far behind. I have more outside under an upside down clear plastic tote with some vent holes. Nothing there so far. |
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I was trying to carry too much stuff out to the greenhouse, and I dropped a colander of seeds, and it went careening across my desk, and onto the floor, and every seed ended up spilled, so I gathered them together as best I could, figuring that it would be a good test of the winnowing jig. It can separate corn, beans, & watermelon seeds from squash seeds.