Hinged Hoop House
Cold Weather Gardening, Growing Food

Hinged hoop houses complete!

Three of the hinged hoop house covers are finished! We built these so we can have lettuce, kale and spinach all winter long. More details about how I built them will be coming soon. Check out the video below to see them in action! [ngg_images source=”galleries” container_ids=”1″ display_type=”photocrati-nextgen_basic_thumbnails” override_thumbnail_settings=”0″ thumbnail_width=”240″ thumbnail_height=”160″ thumbnail_crop=”1″ images_per_page=”20″ number_of_columns=”0″ ajax_pagination=”0″ show_all_in_lightbox=”0″ use_imagebrowser_effect=”0″ show_slideshow_link=”1″ slideshow_link_text=”[Show slideshow]” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]

One Yard Revolution
Cold Weather Gardening, Growing Food

The best design I found on the Internet for an easy-harvest hoop house

You can grow greens like lettuce, kale, and spinach all winter in Oklahoma if you build a simple hoop house out of PVC and plastic sheeting. I’ve spent many hours researching the best way to build a PVC hoop house so that greens can be easily harvested over the winter. This is the best design I’ve seen by far. This video calls for 2 layers of protection, but we should only need one here in […]

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DIY Home Supplies, Rainwater collection, Watering

Details on our DIY IBC Tote 550 Gallon Rainwater Storage

Update: here’s a video detailing it all! These are our main rainwater collection tanks that can capture up to 550 gallons from just 1″ of rain. I used 2 275 gallon IBC tanks purchased on Craigslist for $75 each. I connected them to the gutter with standard PVC pipe. The first 3 tubes on the left are a “first flush” system that filter out the first 20-30 gallons of water. I plan to build a […]

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Growing Food

How We Harvest Lettuce

We’ve found that we tend to eat a lot more salads now that we grow lettuce. You simply cut however much you want, soak it in ice cold water for 10 minutes (we use an ice chest because we process a large amount at a time) and run it through a salad spinner to dry off. It will store up to a week in the fridge if you put it in a plastic container and […]

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Growing Food, Pest Management

Aphid problems? Try ladybugs!

Ladybugs are great to have in the garden because they eat aphids. These little black bugs you see in the picture are soon to be ladybug dinner. The aphids would destroy the plant if left uncontrolled, but thankfully nature has checks and balances that prevent pests from taking over. Believe it or not, you can actually order ladybugs on Amazon. We ordered 1500 ladybugs in the spring and released a handful of them every night […]