In our last post we mentioned plans for building a hoop house. Well, we got it up sooner than we had thought we would. With a 55-mile mountain bike race on the schedule for one of the weekends this month and then a mother-in-law accompanied by her sister (The Great Aunt Laurie), we had to choose to get it done sooner or later. Man! We can really be motivated when it comes to gardening. But hey…like I said…what else would we be doing?? Watching TV??

Space is somewhat of an issue for us on our lot and this hoop house works perfectly since it can be dismantled during the summer months. For about $102.00 at Home Depot you can have one too! Our supplies (plus a little work and a tiny bit of thinking) bought us an 18′ long by 8′ wide hoop house with extra’s to build another small hoop house  over an existing raised bed. (or we will just keep it for repair.) Oh, and we haven’t put the doors on it yet…actually we haven’t even made them yet but the tomatoes that are currently inside would roast if we had them there so we will keep you posted on the doors (more on that after the mountain bike race, family birthdays, and out-of-town visitors.)

Our materials included…

- 2 X 4′s for a rectangular frame to fasten the  hoops to.
- 10′ sticks of 1/2″ PVC plus fittings (couplers, T-couplers and 4-way couplers)
- Gorilla Tape (This stuff is great!)
- 6 mil plastic
- staples
- 1/2″ pipe clamps
- 1-1/4″ wood screws
- 48″ wood lath / slat board (for securing the stapled plastic from wind / tearing).

We’re well on our way to a fruitful winter garden inside our hoop house and our cold frames. We haven’t even closed the ends and the tomato plants that were in the garden space we covered are loving the warmth and showing us this by ripening faster than our outdoor tomatoes.

Building the hoop house is pretty simple. If you have any specific questions or need ideas on integrating your own available materials into a hoop house let us know and we will see if we can help you out.  Here are some photos we took along the way and we’re sure you can figure most of  it out from there.

For years we have talked about having a winter garden and we are finally making it happen. While grocery shopping the other day I noticed how expensive organic produce was at the grocery store even when it was in season! We haven’t bought much much produce in the last 6 months since we grow a lot of our own so this really made us realize just how much money we have been saving. And so we were even further inspired by our efforts of spring and summer gardening and put forth some extra energy to get set up for some year-round (winter garden.)

Back in the spring we came across a couple of nice vinyl windows for $5 each. One blew over during a wind storm and busted (so sad) but we used a few older windows to replace it and completed our cold frames for forcing seeds and essentially maintaining a mini greenhouse. Our cold frame is simply a wooden box with a hinged window top. We framed in the window with 2 x 4′s and connected it to the box with hinges. The frame that uses the older windows used three to make up the lid but it was easy to screw them together….just work with what you have.

Our next project is to build a hoop house over one of the garden beds in the back yard. We’ll share more on that soon, hopefully!

The weather is still mild here in Eugene but the summer crop is past its peak and on a steady decline. We started basil, radishes, Romaine and a second type of lettuce in the cold frames.  We also added some 4″ pots to one of them and planted cauliflower, and two varieties of brocolli. These will go into the future hoop house once they have rooted. It’s all an experiment…we are having fun just doing things and figuring it out along the way. Learning when to plant successive crops (and exactly what to plant and when) would be awesome but I don’t know if I will ever be that organized. I guess it will just have to fall into place because the balance found itself. In the meantime….we are eating enough food to make it worthwhile and it’s fun. What else would we be doing?? Watching TV?? blech!

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I feel like I’m cheating by titling this with the month of January. We are so close to February I do not deserve the timliness that January brings with it. Ah well. The earth grows slowly at this time of year so there is no rush. Our lawn to food project continues and we are even nearing the remodel of our dog house that will soon be a chicken coop. Pictures will come soon.

As for the food…we had our city deliver some leaves to our house this year. We don’t have much room on our lot so we had them dumped in the driveway and on the lawn. We had to get the pile off the lawn first otherwise it would kill off the grass and just look unsightly. It took us a few days to get it done but we did it. We’ve got 5′x20′ area covered in cardboard and topped with 3′ of leaves and we are still adding compost into the pile.

Some people ask us why we are using leaves. The main reason is that we want to do it as cheap as possible and leaves do turn into soil. Rich soil. Our house also sits on an old spring bed so it’s quite rocky and it would take a lot of time to get all the weeds out of the ground. I feel that this is going to give us the best growing medium while using the least amount of monetary resources. It may take a bit more time but with some attention to detail and an active approach to helping the compost along I think we will have a really great spot to grow food in.

We had a fairly small garden space this year; about 160 sq. feet of garden space but we definitely had a variety. Here is what we planted for our summer crop and their performance in our sunny garden with late afternoon shade.

Summer Squash – Italian Zuchinni
Fast, healthy growth of course. We only had one plant since the other two didn’t survive but we still managed to have enough zuchinni to keep us satisfied.

Summer Squash – Ron de Nice
We planted two of these that we grew from seed. Fast growth also with lots of vegetables. This is the summer squash that we ate most often and I loved it because it coud be stuffed or sliced since they are round and oh-so-cute.

Tomato – Oregon Spring
Of course they did great. Super good tomato with hardly any seeds. Love it!

Tomato -

Bell Pepper -
Bell Pepper -
Cantaloupe – I grew this heirloom variety cantaloupe from seed and I really didn’t get the starts big enough before setting them out so they had a slow start. Some  melons  did start but we were never able to harvest and enjoy them since they didn’t ripen. I am trying these again next year but putting them in a really hot spot.

Watermelon – I had the same experience with these as I did the cantaloupe. I’ll be trying these again too.

Cucumber – Japanese Climbing
I love having climbing cucumbers because it saves on space to trellis them and they trellis so easy since you don’t have to give the cucumbers any extra support. We enjoyed lots of Cucumber-Tomato Salads from the abundance that we harvested from just two of these plants.

Cucumber – Lemon
Some surprise Dahlias popped up in the garden and I never moved them. Their presence shadowed the one lemon cucumber plant we had. Thankfully my neighbor, whom I gave two other Lemon Cucumber starts, graciously shared her prolific harvest. Yum yum.

Basil -
I planted my basil near the base of the tomato plants. It did well here while being offered a bit of shade  during some of the hot days. I’m still harvesting basil now.

Strawberry – unknown variety
I don’t know what happened with these strawberries that I planted in the spring but we  didn’t get but a few berries from about 16 plants. I have planted some more strawberries in a different lettuce bed and those are producing better right now. I’ll have to  get some information about growing strawberries .

Lettuce – Mesculun mix
Harvest quickly when the leaves are still small and tender and the lettuce won’t bolt.

Lettuce – Rocky Top blend
This lettuce bolted quickly and when it wasn’t bolting I thought that the texture wasn’t very crisp. I’m a mesculun kinda girl.

Share what’s growing in your garden.

This year we are growing Cilantro, Basil, Parsley and Thyme. When I grow herbs I like to pick only what is needed so that the rest can stay on the plant and be super fresh when I am ready to use it. But there are times that I pick too much and there are other times that I like to cut some cilantro to encourage more growth to occur.

So for whatever the reason is that you have for needing to keep your cut herbs fresh try this tip next time. Just put your herbs in a small glass container with water in it just like you would cut flowers. This keeps them fresher longer. The glass can even be placed in the refrigerator if desired but if you plan to use the herbs in the next day or two the windowsill is just fine.