Hello from Pennsylvania

[MoonShadows]

Hi All,

We've lived on our little 15 acre farm for 20 years now, much of it is wooded. We are both school teachers, although I am now retired, driving a school bus part time and running our home business, in addition to tending our chickens and working on the property.

The Pocono Mountains are not the easiest place to grow vegetables. With a last frost date of Memorial Day and August nights that can go down to 40 degrees, the growing season is short. Each year we learn new tricks and techniques and grow more and more of our own produce in our 4 - 4x8 raised gardens and out 20 x 30 field garden. Now we are ready to notch it up a bit.

This Spring we are adding another garden area and within the next couple of weeks our new greenhouse should be arriving. We purchased an 8' x 16' Sunshine Garden Mt. Rainier redwood and double wall polycarbonate greenhouse. I plan to insulating the ground around it with the Swedish Skirt technique to take advantage of the ground's thermal mass. We are placing it so it will have full access the eastern and southern sun, and we are hoping to be able to grow vegetables year round...easier said than done, but with what we know, what we're learning and what we hope to learn, we're going to give it our best shot.

I hope we can pick up some knowledge from you and share things that we have learned over the years.

Happy to be here and look forward to meeting many of you.

Jim

 

[so lucky]

Hey there! You are in an enviable situation; not only acreage in the mountains, but having a greenhouse. Are you planning to do hot weather crops in the greenhouse, like cukes and tomatoes, or limit it to cool weather greens?
You may be doing as much teaching as learning here. Not many of us have greenhouses that do much more than give a head start to the season.
But welcome! We will enjoy getting to know you.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

hope you enjoy being on TEG with us!

 

[MoonShadows]

I hope to be able to grow year round, but will need auxiliary heat in the winter. We spend a lot on organic fruits and vegetables during the non-growing months...when we can get them. We are partial to anything that can be put in a salad or juiced. Thanks for the welcome

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

plenty of acreage, do you have any fruit or berry plants growing? grafting apple and pear trees is not all that difficult to learn i've found. it does take some patients till the trees are old enough to start bearing fruit (about 3 years depending on the rootstock), but well worth the wait to get something you want!

 

[ducks4you]

, Jim !!!
This IS the friendliest forum on the Internet bc all of us work hard to support each other. It doesn't matter if you are one of the experts, or you don't know much, you will get good ideas here.
The Poconos are a beautiful place to live and my parents (from Cleveland and Philadelphia) met there.
I think the only hurdle to overcome in your area is to make sure that your vegetables get full sun. I know that in mountainous areas you get and grow a lot of trees to hold the soil. Perhaps if you plateau and build a soil retention wall you could make a usuable spot or spots. Also, study up on cold frames and using fresh manure in a pit below the soil to create heat. (Can't tell I'm a horse owner...or anything.) Just thinking off of the top of my head. =b

 

[MoonShadows]

Chickie...We have an apple, cherry, pear and peach tree. We also grow some raspberries and blackberries. Last year we planted some grapes, but they will take a while.

And, ducks...thanks for the info and welcome.

 

[ninnymary]

Welcome MoonShadows. I love your name. I'm looking forward to learning from your wisdom and experience.

Mary

 

[digitS']

Welcome to TEG, Jim .

I had to look for "Swedish skirt foundation." So, this is basically an insulated foundation - perhaps, rather deep ..?

I have a small greenhouse (more of a sunshed) on a concrete foundation. It was a work in-progress for several years and gained it's current size of 9' by 20' about 15 years ago. I've both wished it had a floor and been glad that it doesn't, partly because I suspect that there's a fair amount of heat retention because the floor is dirt.

The last 2 winters, I've had the benches out of the way and grown Asian greens under low tunnels in there. Over last winter, the tunnels actually covered the paths so that I have to pull the plastic film off and step over the pvc hoops to walk from one end of the greenhouse to the other. I'm not too sure I'll do that again. There's one thing about making use of every square inch of space and another thing about being able to get around in there !

Anyway, it's full of plant starts right now and only some transplants have been set out into the open garden. There was frost on the roofs Sunday & Monday mornings, after highs of 66°f and 70°. The 75° yesterday afternoon (& probably the warmest for the week) finally was enough warming to stave off freezing this morning. And, there is some of that mountain weather you are probably experiencing living in the Poconos ...

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Welcome Moonshadows Jim!

I'm really looking forward to hearing more about your greenhouse experience, that's something dh and I have been discussing for years it seems.