Hoop Bending

hoop bender

Well three years after I bought it I finally got my hoop bender bolted to a stable work space and got to use it!

This little contraption will bend a 10 foot long piece of 1/2 inch EMT (conduit) into a hoop four feet wide and four feet tall.

It didn't take very long for me to bend all 10 pieces of EMT that I had on hand.

first hoop done!

Most of my garden beds are sized four feet wide. The hoops are pushed into the ground and a purlin or ridge pole fastened along the top to keep them all together. Then various coverings can be fastened to the hoops, frost cloth, shade cloth, plastic, depending on the weather and needs of the crop. The nice thing about using the EMT is that it will last just about forever and does not need a bottom board or stake in the ground like PVC does to hold it's shape.

Sugar Daddy peas sprouting

In other news the Sugar Daddy snap peas are sprouting. If the weather isn't too severe I should have snap peas for sale about the end of March. 

feed needs for meat chickens

While excess cockerels and cull hens supply me more than enough chicken for the freezer I have been contemplating and calculating raising broilers to order. So far no takers. $6 a pound for home grown organic chicken isn't a bad price, but I do need a non refundable 50% deposit to be able to get started. Perhaps that is what is throwing people off.