Plant House
Submitted by fyl on Thu, 2011/02/24 - 11:11.
in
Not really a greenhouse but a home for plants. The roof is "zinc transparente" (as much as I hate that name). North wall is regular zinc roofing. The south and west sides have rabbit wire (called dos por dos here) for the bottom three feet. The footings are piedra cantera. It is raised (and covered) to keep it from turning into a swamp during the rainy season.
The wind is almost always from the northeast. Some sort of plastic (Ana's project) will get added to the chain link fence on the east side. Overall size is about 3 by 9 meters.
Costs
If anyone is interested, we added up the costs. A bit over $300 including some local labor and a lot of free Phil and Margarita labor. As our diets contain a lot more veggies that most people around here and for most veggies a trip to Estelí would be required anyway, it should pay for itself rather quickly.
Looks nice Phil...interested to see how the growing goes :)
Doors of hope fly open when doors of promise shut. -Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Who is going to be
Who is going to be responsible for planting and tending to this "home"? What do you intend to put there? Is there a reason you need to protect the plants from the rain? Most people just raise the bed a little to promote drainage. Please clue us in to this latest project. :>]
Ana
Ana the agronomist is in charge.
We have been using raised beds with mixed success. For example, the Bok Choy did very well. For most of the year the rain is not an issue but, for a couple of months it can be significant enough to wash small plants away. But there is also the wind issue for maybe three months. Lots of plants in the raised beds have been damaged by the wind. Thus, there are two purposes for the shelter at different times during the year.
It's placement will also reduce the wind into the other garden areas such as where there are papayas planted. While wind damage is not a general issue on the property, we did manage to place our house in the absolute worst location with regard to wind.
What gets planted there is up to Ana but based on what we eat and what has not done well "outside", tomatoes and peppers (from chiltoma to chili) will be high on the list. Ultimately, I would like to get "food runs" to town down to buying sacos of rice, sacos of maseca and buckets of cooking oil.
This be lookin
like plain and clear dis crim and ation aginst the natural borned wild critters.Who wuz ther before old whitebeard. Man whut is the ountry comin to when the mostest liberized on the block remove the freedom fro his wild cousins..all for abit of greenery. Now if he growin the herb, dat this another thang as we knows that need tection. Nuff siaid..give the critters there due.ZZT
LOL
The wild critters don't need people food. They can plant their own.
Not the ones ATZ hang out with....
Them critters is lazy! They ain't gonna plant nothin.
No..we not lzy
....we wants the goumet veggies and spice. Hell wid this beans and rice day in and out. And no acorns even.ZZT
A good dog will keep the critters away
My favorite dog, Jessie (she ain't nuthin' but a hound dog), usually kept the critters away but was so well trained that when the critters were *in* the garden, she ran around it because she wasn't *allowed* to be *in* the garden herself to get them!