Planting in the New Garden

adding purlins to the low tunnel hoops

Well my supplier didn't get my EMT conduit in yet but I remember seeing some laying around somewhere.... So a check of the junk piles yielded just enough to finish the first bed in the new garden. Mmmmmm looks like a couple of issues. Partly these aren't connecting because the ground slopes a lot from one end to the other and partly because under the compost the ground is as hard as concrete.

my trusty 8' iron bar

So off to find my trusty iron bar. The pointed end is just right to make the holes deeper for a couple of the hoops so they go into the ground a  little further.

purlin on, ends taped to protect cover from rubbing

You can buy special connectors to attach the purlins to the hoops and I probably will get some; they will help make the framework more rigid. In the meantime some baling wire (aka tie wire) did fine. Along with some Gorilla tape on the ends to prevent abrasion of the row cover on the end of the purlin.

wind.... grrr

It was a beautiful sunny morning, so calm and so still..... UNTIL I rolled out the row cover! Of course the wind started up the instant I went to put the cover on the hoops.

with 2 pieces of row cover

So I found some clamps and got it fastened down. Only to discover that either I should have pushed the hoops farther into the ground or I should have ordered wider row cover. What I have is not wide enough to cover the hoops with enough slack on the ground to weight it down. So for now there are 2 pieces of cover on these hoops.

planted!

Once all of that was settled, I got busy planting. Some baby pak choi, collard greens and broccoli. I'm thinking the pak choi and collards will be ready to pick in about a month. The broccoli will probably be about 8-12 weeks.