I like your ideas but I must make one point. Most experts say you shouldn’t use treated lumber in food beds.

 

Is true, however, that lumber has been rained on and sun beaten for the last 15 years and the manure compost was loaded in this past fall. Doubt there is much leaching or contamination to think about.

That's a biggest bunch of hot air, Bull Hockey if ever I heard or read it, and yet idiots still believe it!! Do you guys really believe everything you're told or read? I've grown a garden with these R.R. ties for over 20 years and have never had a problem with any of the crops, or my health! You do what you want, I'll stick with what works!

 

Is true, however, that lumber has been rained on and sun beaten for the last 15 years and the manure compost was loaded in this past fall. Doubt there is much leaching or contamination to think about.

 

Very nice! By all means, if you've got the opportunity to garden most or all of winter, then do it! As I see it, every mouthful that you can grow helps. As for the hydro unit-yeah, try some bigger stuff. I've grown micro tomatoes in mine. The only problem was the tomato shaded everything else out so all I had in a 12 hole unit was 1 tomato. That tomato produced well however, and the determinant variety kept going until I yanked it. The fruits got really acidic and were taking forever to ripen. Now I'm back to salad greens and growing micro-tomatoes in small pots indoors. I'm quite a ways north of you though, in 5b.

 

No reason to get your panties in a wad. I just repeated what most experts say. I knew a man that worked with radioactive mercury recovery for the atom bomb project and never had health problems. Doesn’t prove anything. Several of his coworkers died of cancer or other diseases related to radiation or mercury.

 

That looks nice. I wish I could grow year round outside.
I am building a new indoor year round hydro setup for greens in my barn. Will have it up and running in the next few weeks. Already have a list of people that want to buy it all year.
Will post pics and a thread when I get it going.

 

Very nice! Have you considered perhaps adding Tom Thumb peas to your bed for extra variety? They only get 8-10" high, with full sized peas. I've raised them in a couple of large kiddie pools; 1 with a mix of loose-leaf lettuces, the other with the Parisian carrots. I'm also looking at trying Carol Deppe's approach to raising "eat all greens" this year.

 

Looks great!
15 years. Thats most likely the newer lumber treatment, without the old arsenic that leached out

 

Looks like it grows food to me. Two concerns - water next to the house isn't good for the foundation and pressure treat lumber can leach stuff. Neither one will cause issues today but later on they could come back and bite you in the butt.

 

Charlie, see post 3 and only watered to germinate with a can, bed is lined with plastic. Rain took care of the rest, this past year.

Think I'll try peppers, eggplant, grown sideways, maybe tomatoes in the hydro setup in the bsmt.

I dont have much butt left to bite, at 70!

BTW: Row cover works well during the dog days as well, for keeping soil moisture up and wilting down. Multi purpose.

 

Meanwhile, BACK to the original thread........

That bed has done well for you! That south facing wall probably soaks up enough heat on a sunny day to release a bit at night. Too bad the kale didn't germinate as it would have loved that environment and is tough as nails in cold weather.

I'm in 8a/7b (depending on the year) and have some fall-winter stuff in containers on the front porch. My arugula there has bolted too and is flowering as is the dwarf bok choy. I'm kicking myself in the pants now for not starting another batch earlier so that it would have been ready when this one pooped out.

If this was your first go-round with this bed you did good and next year's will be even better!

 

Thanks. This used to be my old seed test/germinating bed but I got tired of walking 100 yards to the garden in the dead of winter and snow for greens. Out in the big garden, things didn't do as well as in this little bed, colder, winds, less cover control, plus, I suspect the house warming during the day also keeps the temps up at night.

I have another bed the same size and same config with the house. This one is under a long awning so rain cant get to it as well. Might do more veg in this one but kicking around more blueberries since its so close to water for doing a small drip system . Easier to protect the bb's in this bed than the constant bird struggle in the big garden, plus I sit on the porch allot, just above this bed so I can monitor it closely and tap the glass to drive birds off when I am around. This is how I call my nearly, totally deaf and blind dog in now, rapping a throwing knife on the glass.

I only started this thread to let the un-initiated know that it can be done. Giving everything that's going on, think it's time to keep our food supply "very close to home", as it were. Don't know if I would be so keen to consume any food produced in the Miss river valley after the Ohio disaster...

 

Just finished setting out our PVC Hoop House. Now the wind storms are trying to take it down. I have eight cinder blocks inside the hoops tied down with 550 cord and so far we have withstood gusts to 50 mph with sustained winds at 25 mph. The house slid across the ground almost a foot so I put tent stakes in the ground to stop the house from moving any more. We'll be starting seeds this weekend, both inside and in the hoop house.

This is a cold house environment and it keeps the frost and wind off the plants but I don't think it'll be warm enough for anything to germinate, yet. My wife disagrees so she wants to sow direct to the pots and try her luck. I'll be starting seeds inside for tomatoes & peppers. I'll have to look through my seed vault to check for others. Most of what I like is direct sow, therefore, I won't start them yet. I have time to work up a raised bed box and get some composted dirt in place.

We did this at our last house and we had greens almost year round. I'm looking forward to this years harvest.

 

Just finished setting out our PVC Hoop House. Now the wind storms are trying to take it down. I have eight cinder blocks inside the hoops tied down with 550 cord and so far we have withstood gusts to 50 mph with sustained winds at 25 mph. The house slid across the ground almost a foot so I put tent stakes in the ground to stop the house from moving any more. We'll be starting seeds this weekend, both inside and in the hoop house.

If you did not do it yet, you need to encapsulate the PVC so it cannot be touched by the poly plastic. The chemical reaction will eat away the poly in no time. You can paint it or wrap it with a cloth tape.
If you are only going to use it for a few months it will be ok, but if that is real greenhouse plastic and not cheap home depot plastic, you may want to try to preserve it for next year.