Jan 21 More update

Green Team update
          Jan 20

Folks
One of the things I forgot in the blog yesterday was us transforming old plastic barrels into rain barrels. These can be used if you have gutters to gather good rain water for your plants or just collect rain without gutters for the same purpose.  I have been to a Clemson ext course on building one and it was easy. If I get 10 people to come to a session, the Clemson person will come to our church and give us a hour's worth of in class learning and then we go outside and build our barrels.  She brings all the tools we need and parts for the barrels like faucets and drains. I think we paid her $10. each for the parts and class.  If we do not get 10 people, then I can do a much shorter version, but will probably need $10 each for the supplies and barrel.  I have found five of the barrels for $5. each and am looking for more. Below is what my barrel looks like.

 I installed a faucet below and it has a overflow near the top with the blue flat hose.  Mine is topless as I already have one at home for my gutter.  Let us see  if we can do this in February. It would be great to have them ready for March when all the rain comes. They can easily be painted, although not mine yet!

Greenhouse

       I did not mention in the last blog the nightmare I have been having bending the hoops for the greenhouse. I purchased a hoop bender from Johnny Seeds company.  I affixed it to a sturdy dining maple table that has been in my family for 62 years but has been a work table for last 10 years.  I pounded metal spikes into the ground for greater stability.   Well, it lasted three and a half poles to bend and broke.
So today, I purchased two heavy duty landscape logs and cut them into 4' lengths. I then used a post hole digger and dug 18" holes and dropped the four in and tamped the dirt down. I had an old piece of 1/2 plywood a 4'x8' piece and screwed them to the four logs.   This ain't going anywhere.  I would have worked on some more today but while getting up from securing the bending apparatus to the table I lost my balance and fell into some leaves.  240 pounds down on my sore arm ended my day.... tomorrow, Jon Stafford is coming to help me in the afternoon.  We hope to get all the hoops bent tomorrow and get them all secured.
Wednesday we may build the table for inside the total length of one side of the greenhouse.

      I often follow this guy from southern Virginia, maybe near VA Beach. He has tons of You Tubes up and I am learning much from him. Recently he has gone Hyroponic with great success. We should try some of this too.    http://www.youtube.com/user/mhpgardener?feature=watch