One of the many hobbies I use to spread myself too thin in life is gardening, and some tree propagation.
Anyone else on kirupa doing anything similar?
I wanted to share this hoop house I built in my yard a few months ago to experiment in.
My next step, hopefully before spring, is to nerd it up with a raspberry pi and automation…which I currently have no experience with. I plan to automatically roll up the sides based on temp using two DC motors. Then of course auto watering, fans and monitoring…i may then build a robot to eat the food, as I do not like lettuce.
I grow various types of herbs. Basil, mint,oregano, etc. Things to put in food! I also like planting mostly evergreen for landscaping, since they stay pretty and green all winter, like holly and rue. Rue is phototoxic but is very pretty. The berries on the holly really stand out in the snow.
Same here with the food, my wife takes care of the salad herbs, but I grow the standard home garden foods. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, potatoes, corn and watermelons sometimes. Apple trees
roselle hibiscus has been an interesting one. It produces a sour bud for tea or alcohol mixes.
My favorite is also evergreens. I’ve been planting quite a bit of thuja around my property. Super fast growth rate its oddly exciting. Also hinoki cypress.
I plan to get some Holly this year, rue however, I had not heard of but I think I’ll skip that one based on the blister rash arms that came up on Google
I used to work on a ranch with up to 2000 cattle in the feedlot in the winter. And we grew about a thousand acres of oats and barley. Probably the same amount in hay.
Your greenhouse automation sounds fun! I love projects like that. Let us know how it goes.
That sounds like a serious farm. I thought my 1 dog and 20x40ft garden was a lot.
The automation should be a fun project. I know I at least have to get the side roll up motors going or it will bake out at crazy high temperature in the spring. It already hits 90 on a sunny winter day.
There isn’t a whole lot of info on the roll up motors. I think they are mostly used in China, but I know I have to then supply my own relay, power supply, controls, timers. That’s where the raspberry pi starts to look good as a central controller for everything, plus expansion.
We’ll let it roll for a little while longer. There may be more discussion on romaine in the near future here . If it gets to spam-busy, we can lock it.
I’ll have to post an update to this at some point, but i did end up automating the roll up sides last year with motors, and it worked shocking well actually. I thought it would be a trial and error mess of plastic in the wind but it pretty much worked first shot.
Im sitting in here now thinking it needs some multi color disco led strips to make it weirder at night.
Pretty sure my suburb neighbors already assume its a cannabis tent, which it is not.
This has been my first time with any greenhouse/hoop house and it’s definitely fun. In the day if you don’t open the sides its a crazy sauna in here
No, i did modify it with some scrap material which is why you see the long non matching bolts, but i bought two of them used for cheap.
Otherwise i was planning to make that part a pipe sliding over the main pipe. I don’t think it needs bearings or wheels at all, though it may be quieter
. If it gets to spam-busy, we can lock it.
