Ryan Koeneke

Thanks scott,  

Does the double plastic have an adverse affect on the amount of usable light to the plants? I've heard every 6mil layer you put on is like a 15% reduction in usable light.  In the early spring and late fall when sunlight is at a premium does this adversely affect whats growing underneath? Also... is it worth the cost of the blower and all that... I have access to line power from my house that can easily be run to the hoop house.  Plus if plastic is coming up and down every spring and fall is it a ton of hassle to be hooking up the inflated system all the time? From talking to locals who know what they are doing it sounds like I should be running shade cloth in June-early Aug so idk if the double wall is the best..... idk man. thoughts?

Doesn't actual bed space correlate directly to sq. ft.?

I do have a tractor with a backhoe and would be doing the hugle beds before the structure is built.

Thanks for all the input .... it is GREATLY appreciated!

I have a grant from the NRCS for a high tunnel hoop house.  The requirements are - it has to be a commercial kit that is bought from a dealer, roughly 1500 sq feet, and I have to grow in the ground.

I'm hoping for suggestions on manufacturer, helpful/necessary upgrades, end wall suggestions, and floor plan layout ideas.

I have room for a 20-35' width and more than enough length to make it 1500 sq foot.


Main things I'm grappling with: single poly layer or double inflated, shade cloth importance, quonset vs gothic, plastic endwalls (for asthetics), roll up side options (it will just be me taking care of this), and whether or not to make the floor a bunch of huglebeds, slight (~4") raised beds, or just layout walkways and plant in the ground as is.


I'm in Western Colorado at ~6300' ASL. avg max temp in july is 94.3, avg min temp in jan is 11.4, I will remove the plastic in the winter so avg snowfall is 33.8 in./yr. We do have strong winds and the occasional microburst that makes this old house i'm in flex.

Ok so my swales might be on the scale of 10x larger than they should be lol. I'll see if anyone else has time to chime in on spacing for water efficiency. If you want to PM me your email i'll send over the sketchup file I have. Its a bit rough around the edges but decent to fly around on. I'm always interested in hearing criticisms or different ideas of things to do.

Implementation will end up being the hard part . Need to make sure I understand all swale species and spacings and then gather all my pennies into one corner to give away to excavator operators .

What size swathers were you running 20'? I'm on 80 acres down here and i have 300 up high so I'm attempting to figure out large scale swales with grass/alfalfa haying inbetween. I think the upper end of what people are running out here is 18-20' swathers.

I'm most worried about irrigation to the hay that is spaced between the swales. In my preliminary design the swales were spaced at around 150' to 200'... is that too much space to allow the swale to irrigate the downhill portion up to the next swale?

Hey Darren,

Per Cassie's daliyish email: I had a question on the spacing of swales. Geoff Lawton quotes using the canopy of your climax species and their max height should be the base of the uphill swale, unless you are on flatter ground (like I am). Then he talks about being able to bump the prevailing winds up to keep them at canopy height.

My issue is that the prevailing winds are parallel to the contour lines so I'm not sure how to space my swales.

I assume with the situation I'm in I just have to think about maximizing irrigation efficiency but i'm not sure what distance intervals would do this. I have sandy clay loam soils at 6200' elevation in western Colorado usa (cool to cold temperate, high desert ish area.

Any help is appreciated.

Dan Grubbs wrote:Ryan,

The guy at the YouTube channel below has a host of permaculture videos, but also a series specifically about construction of his dams and swales. I think the series is titled, "The Permaculture Project Day X-X". For those of us who continue to learn about design and systems integration, this channel is generally worth watching ... at least I get something out of them.

https://www.youtube.com/user/PermaculturePA

Good luck

Thanks for the link Dan. He was saying Red Clover/White Clover and planting some bamboo as well. He also mentioned "anything that doesn't have a taproot".

Thanks again for directing me to this,
Ryan

Su Ba wrote:I don't have any experience for your area, but are you looking for perennials or annuals, or a mix?

I would prefer to have perennials that require very little to no maintenance but I realize that if the plants provide a benefit maintenance might be worth it.

Hello all,

I was looking around on here for what to plant on the dam of the pond I just expanded and only ran across bamboo and wild rice. I would prefer to stay away from the bamboo as someone said it grows like 12ft tall and the view off the dam is right down valley.

I was thinking about just broadcasting a seed mix that is good for wild turkeys but I am open to any and all ideas cause I don't know anything

The pond is at 8000 ft of elevation in Western Colorado, 9.5 ft deep, going to have native CO cutthroat trout in it, and that's about all I know.

Sorry if this has been discussed somewhere else (but I couldn't find it)

Thanks,
Ryan

Dale Hodgins wrote:Rocks can be laid out so as to provide a snow fence. Large specimens mixed with small laid across the prevailing wind will trap snow within the mass as well as on the leeward side.
Snow melt along with wind and evaporation protection can allow trees and bushes to thrive in landscapes that wouldn't normally support them. These trees and bushes increase the effectiveness of the windbreak and snow fence. The British might call this a hedgerow. Wildlife will use it.

The same structure laid on contour, could be used to construct a sort of swale without a lot of excavating. Simply lay out the rocks and dump any unwanted brush, stumps, soil, crop residue etc. on the up hill side. Leaves from the shrubs will fall into this tangle. Water and eroded soil will accumulate.
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Check out the Talus Garland effect. Google it or scroll down until you see the graphic of the rocks and tree in this thread. --- https://permies.com/t/31304/desert/Rubble-Rock-Fog-Wall-Swale

Thank you all for the great responses. I need a snow fence on a part of the lane into my place. The road sits in a bit of a trough with the uphill (south) side seeming to have the prevailing wind in the winter. The lane has a row of apple trees on this south side and a barbed wire fence running down the side as well. To begin this I would stack rocks up and down the barbed wire fence for the length that I need the snow fence. However, the questions I have are:

How high does the rock pile need to be for an adequate snow fence? (I will try and get pictures here in a bit)
How much stuff do I need to pile on these rocks or will just rocks do enough for the fence?
Can I gain any benefits for this style rock pile for the existing (or future) fruit trees along this lane? (ie would this be a better place for cherries or apricots that have high chances of frost due to the radiant heat from this pile in the spring?_