February is coming to a close and the rainy weather is here, after several weeks of postponing we finally decided to take our chances slogging through the mud to start building a new hoop house at PMSS. Mark Walden made the trek out with most of the supplies we needed and we rounded up a few volunteers and Pine Mountain staff members to help us get the work done. With Mark directing (and doing much of the hard work) we were easily able to complete most of the frame within the day. Unfortunately the promise of rain overnight led us to put off the completion until a later date.
The hoop house will be used for the Pine Mountain gardens to extend the growing season with plants such as lettuces, chard, peppers, tomatoes, early broccoli, peas etc. The Pine Mountain kitchen is currently working on diversifying their menus for school and adult groups and focusing on creating healthier food that is delicious and fresh. The new hoop house will greatly increase the kitchen’s capacity for using food fresh from the garden throughout the late fall and early spring.
Though we have not yet finished constructing the hoop house Mark’s basic plan has proven to be very easy and a completely doable task even if you only have 2 days to work on it. I am confident that the resulting structure will be sturdy and long lasting. We’re all keeping our fingers crossed for good weather so that later this week we can continue as planned and finish framing the house and putting in the door and then the plastic will go on!
I like this very much! Nice and tall!