Stabilizing My Foodshed

It’s been two long growing seasons without a hoophouse for me.  And that era has come to an end!  Depending on what your worries are – peak oil, peak water, erratic weather, natural disaster, radiation fallout, etc. – becoming more self -reliant in your foodshed is a good way to go.  Last spring was a bugaboo too for getting any garden started, let alone getting all crops to harvest, and this year is shaping up to be the same.

And being somewhat of a weather junkie, I like to read about the weather and weather patterns that have historically plagued our area.  This particular blog post about 30 year weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest caught my eye.  The conclusions match the oral history of the weather on our farm and give me pause.  I’m in my early 50’s and if we are entering a 30 year cold phase I just might be glad we built this hoophouse for my last gardening decades 🙂  Nothing better on a cool, spring day than a draft-free hoophouse.  And nothing better than biting into a vine-ripened tomato, which is a rare commodity here without a hoophouse.

1996 – Ruthless showing her Breyer percheron to a neighbor.

For us, a hoophouse can round out our diet a little.  Moderation is the key, as in all things.  I don’t want to eat all raw food, nor do I want to eat all canned or frozen food either.  Too often it’s easy to get fanatical and over-correct and get in the other ditch or go off the cliff entirely.  I want to grow as much of our food as possible, but often the growing is the easy part.  Harvesting, storing and keeping are just as big of undertaking as the initial growing.  So season extension is the name of the game with greens and other cool weather crops and during the summer, I can get some warm weather crops consistently too with a hoophouse.  I don’t want to be like the store, having fresh tomatoes and melons in January, I want to know my food and who handled it.  I want to be the toiler, I don’t want to hire someone to do the nitty-gritty, or feel that I am to busy to have my hands on my food or let machines do my work for me.  But beware, a hoophouse this size really adds to the garden workload.  Expensive real estate means intensive gardening and rotations to keep everything going well.  It’s a whole ‘nuther ballgame compared to our bio-extensive dryland outside gardens.  But, I am not complaining, the salsa stockpile is getting a little low 😉

Actually the frame has been up since last year.  We were waiting for a spate of dry days to install the cover.  No such luck.  We have been lucky to have a day or two here and there.  So we seized the opportunity this past weekend and got it covered finally.  Weekend warriors, cramming two or three days of work into one day.  Ugh – I felt like I had been pulled through knothole backwards by Saturday night.

The dogs wore themselves out too – having to act as quality control inspectors.

First chicken wire, then plastic.

Inside inspection, I guess…   I know they’re dreaming of hiking their legs on my Numex peppers, only of course after a coyote has…

Cover on, spring lock next.

Getting ready to install the roll-up side.

Done.  Come on summer!

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