June 28

The weather has finally started to warm up with temperatures in the low 90's. Everything in the garden is starting to take off. Most if not all of the squash, both winter and summer, and the pumpkins are up. You can almost sit and see them grow.

I got the 1st and 2nd planting of corn thinned and a furrow down each row of the 1st planting. The 3rd planting is up now. I have 3000' of brown earth line soaker hose to run down each of the potatoes and corn rows, but we have so much water this year that it is going to be easier to just flood irrigate after the corn is too tall to use a rainbird. The potatoes are almost too tall now.

Between the neighbors and us we have 4 shares of water that I can use. Levan Irrigation Company put a pressurized irrigation system in town last year, so one share of water in town is as much as one share of water in the fields. For an example of how much water we have this year, yesterday we had 14,091 gallons of water per share for a total of 56,366 gallons for a 24 hour period. This 56,000 gallons could have been the amount that I had for one full month in years past when the irrigation water was piped through the culinary system. We used 5191 gallons total to water the garden and my lawn and my neighbor's front lawn. The sprinklers and drip system ran for about 8 hours total. I could have run the water the full 24 hours and still not used all the water that was available. As the summer continues, this amount of water will decrease, but we will have more than enough. In years past water has been tight but we are very blessed this year.

I have more pictures this post. I started in the northeast corner and went around the garden counter-clockwise taking the photos. As you can see the potatoes are doing well and blossoms are starting to form.


You can see the row of sunflowers on the right of this photo.

Another photo looking back to the east of the sunflowers and potatoes.

You can see the furrows in the 1st planting of corn.

Center of the garden looking east.

A shot of the pumpkins.

Southwest corner looking towards the northeast.

Southeast looking towards the northwest. Summer squash is in the bottom of the photo.

This photo is looking west to show the tomato's growth.

This photo is taken from the center east side looking towards the southwest. These are the La Soda potatoes.

Center east looking to the northwest. Peas and beans.

I heavily thinned the carrots this week. They always look poor after a good thinning, but they seem to have recovered.

June 24 Hoop House II

Joshua and I were able to get the rest of the ribs up this week. The buckets in the photos went over the all-thread rod until we slid the PVC pipe over them. This was to prevent someone from getting hurt if they were to fall on one. The ribs are 24' long. I added 2' of pipe to both ends of the rib. This is 2' longer then the USU hoop houses. This will give me a taller structure and put less stress on the glued joints. I ended up putting a screw in each of the joints just as an added measure. All of the screws are on the inside of the ribbing to prevent them from tearing the plastic when it is installed over the ribs.

I used PVC crosses to hold the ribs together. This acts as a purling on top. The top pieces of PVC pipe are held in by 1" grabber screws. I used screws so I can take it apart and move the whole hoop house if ever needed.

Here are the finished ribs and purling. I still need to build some end walls with doors and a venting system. I will not install the greenhouse film (plastic) until mid September. I will raise meat chickens in the front half of the hoop house and veggies in the back half.

June 20 Hoop House I

This is not part of the Mega Garden, but I thought that I would put it in here anyway. I have been wanting to build a greenhouse since the day we moved here 10 years ago, but I haven't found plans for one that was in my budget until now. I found this video on the Internet that was put together by the USU county agent from Sanpete county. Here is the link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4555704608768330618

...or you can watch it here. It is about 41 minutes long.



Here is a detailed parts list and construction instructions from the USU web site.

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/HG_High_Tunnels_2008-01photos.pdf

I found a good deal on 1" x 10' Schedule 40 PVC pipe at NPS Industrial in Salt Lake (1600 S. Empire Road). I got it for $.07 a foot. The photos below are of the family measuring and driving the all-thread rod in the ground. I got a good deal on 5/8" x 36" all-thread rod also at NPS. I am using the all-thread rod instead of rebar. The hoop house will be 14' x 30' and about 8' high in the center when it is done.




Molly has become my #1 helper. She spends the most time with me in the garden and has a good size garden of her own that she weeds and waters almost daily. Here she is driving an all-thread rod in the ground.

Matthew is stepping of fthe north side of the hoop house. Joshua is supervising.

The PVC ribs of the hoop house are 36" apart. We needed to drive an all-thread rod every 3' along both the north and south sides.The tape is run between each of the corner rods to make sure everything is square.

I started to glue the ribs together but I didn't get far before the rain hit.

Here are all of the rods driven 24" into the ground just waiting for the PVC ribs.

June 21

I was able to get the potatoes hilled up this last week. You can see the sunflowers in the bottom right of this photo. Katie and Molly planted a row 150' along the north end of the garden.

The other end of the sunflowers and the corn.

Winter squash and pumpkins are finally up. It is still raining almost every day.

Peas, beans, carrots, potatoes, Katie, and Molly

Summer squash also finally up.

The tomatoes are doing well. I have had 3 of the roma tomato plants die on me and had to replant them. The Peppers are just sitting there doing nothing; it has been too cool for them.

La Soda potatoes. Molly and Matthew in the background. They are at the halfway furrow (between east and west) to give you an idea of how big this garden really is.

Left to right: Peas, beans, carrots, and potatoes. Katie is almost standing in the center of the garden.

June 15

Potatoes

Second planting of corn is up

It has rained almost every day in June and been on the cool side. The winter squash and pumpkins are refusing to show themselves. I might have to replant.

Same problem with the summer squash and melons.

La Soda spuds and tomatoes

Peas and beans.

These next two photos are of the garden at the house.

June 7

The potatoes are doing well. I have three variaties planted here from right to left, Burbank Russets, Yukon Gold, and Red Pontiac.

I have the second planting of corn in the ground to the right.

The first planting of corn is doing well.

The summer squash and cucumbers are slow to germinate due to the cool, wet weather we are having in June.

Here is the second planting of potatoes. We had a full 50# bag of Red La Soda seed potatoes given to us and you can see that they are just starting come up.

The peas and beans are doing well