Hoop House Experiences

It has taken me a bit to work up a plan for this post and not turn it into a bunch of dos and don'ts. We did get so much education out of this that the losses to me are just part of the course. I'm hoping that this info is something I'll want to read about sometime next year, say around January when I start daydreaming about dirt again. Sorry to say but the whole subject now is a drag, but I need to write it down before I forget!
Anyhow...Hoophouse. Love it. Yes, it's a great idea. I might have been even better if our weather in the early spring hadn't made the point of a hoophouse obsolete. In fact that is were we first ran into trouble. But who would have known? I'm thinking that we didn't need to make it so big either...but that is the way Bryon does things!

Kale: This grew great and as long as I kept it watered very well it produced lots of good greens for our family, because we do love kale. I plan on keeping up this fall with this one. Around June it started not having fun in the heat and well...don't think for once that the cabbage worms wont make their way in! I gave up the trying to deworm and pulled most of it for the goats. There is still a big patch but I'll keep it for fall after the frost kills the worms. It would have done just fine outside though.

Lettuces: These did well except for the excessive heat that took us by surprise. They soon bolted but so enjoyable while we had them. This was one(of many) of those things that we should have just planted outside it was so warm!

Beets: We ate a few greens but I don't think that I was able to supply enough water by hand. We didn't have the soaker hoses up at that far end. That or it got to hot for them also.

Bunching onions: I couldn't water them enough either and my hand watering only packed down the soil, stunting their growth?

Peas: Actually the kids had a hayday on these! We didn't get a trellis up soon enough so my onions got trampled in the search for peas, oh well.

Cabbage: So sad. I had started beautiful plants and they grew so lovely. Of course, we know how they like it cool! And what little knots there were the worms feasted on.

Broccoli: Another sad tale. I read that if broccoli gets too hot early in early stage it will "button". Growing well and healthy looking (uuumm I thought it was a little too tall and the leaves too small) but only forming a small button of a head. And that's what happened here.

Brussel Sprouts: Same story. I didn't look this up but the sprouts never formed they just sort of bolted, I'm blaming this on the heat too. The goats loved them, worms and all.

Tomatoes: Bryon's pride and joy and faithfully kept them pruned. I thought this was so awesome how he had this set up. And it worked! This part of the hoophouse was black plastiked and soakerhosed so it is well watered and weed free. The tomatoes reached the ceiling and at this point continue out the top!  The twine is wound around the plant all the way to the bottom. This actually really works but we need to keep after them as after a while they will sag a bit under the weight of the fruit. Our blunder here was not taking the plastic off soon enough and the tomatoes stopped blooming. I will be interested to see if they start back up now that the plastic is off.

Green Peppers: Doing wonderful. Full of blooms and growing lots of peppers. We might have got them planted sooner and we would be more ahead, but  I hesitated not sure where I wanted them to go.

Herbs: Doing ok, but who can tell with the chickens able to run in and out.

Cucumbers: In cucumber heaven. Bryon made a wall and lined the roof with snow fence for the cucs to climb. They grew like crazy, produced a huge amount and then ...the vines are dying now, not sure why yet.

Then we had a gustnado July 6th and the top of a tree went thru the plastic. Bryon decided that it was long overdue to get the plastic off.

So we did.