Felicia Browell II

Chris Merritt wrote:I’ve been very interested in this topic for a while. I’m located in North Carolina in the US and I’ve always had such bad fortune with pumpkins and squash. The hot, humid summers seem to breed pests that love this crop.
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All of this, along with being more deliberate about the types of pumpkin/squash I’m growing, has made a big difference based on what I’m seeing so far. It could also be a small assist attributable to my guineas roaming and eating some of the pests. The plants are much healthier and the leaf mulch keeping down the grasses and other undesirable plants.

Hi Chris. I'm in NC too. I wanted to do a pumpkin patch this fall, actually hoping and praying that those would provide some cash flow from the farm. But the opportunity passed because I had to wait for others to come with bigger equipment, or had to wait to get additional implements for my own little tractor, or wait for rain, or for the rain to stop ... so ... no pumpkins this year. Shifting to basils, potatoes, beans, and maybe late zucchinis. If this round of rain stops long enough!

This is my second full year living on my land, although I am not yet living off the land. I'm a slow learner, apparently. Or maybe I thought I was more capable than I turned out to be in real life! I have big plans, still, so ... pumpkins next year on at least part of the land. This fall I'll be planting blackberries, raspberries, and more blueberries, and I'm hoping to get the chestnut trees planted this fall. Seems like I'm more focused on the long run orchard plantings, rather than the short-run crops. Going to try to be more balanced going forward.

It looks like a magic pumpkin fairy circle. How did it work out?

Update: Was referred to another part of the company I want to deal with. The other part makes custom carports and such using metal tubing. One of the specs I gave the builder is that none of this passive solar greenhouse can be made from wood. Yes, it will cost more up front, but will eliminate almost 100% of the pest pressure: molds, fungi, insects all find ready homes in wood structures, and once embedded, are hard to eliminate. The greenhouse at school (I just finished doing a associates program in sustainable ag at the local community college) periodically clears out every plant from the greenhouse during a hot spell, pressure washes everything, then turns off all ventilation to heat the greenhouse up over 120-degrees. Kills a lot of the embedded pests, but ...
My greenhouse is for production - food, herb plants for my farm and for sale, and a few permanent residents (previously mentioned bananas, and probably a couple of lemons and a mango or two). So larger, harder to clean out, thus preventive up-front measures as I'm aware and able.
All hints and tips and wisdom welcome here! Let me know if you spot something you think I need to know. I'm here to learn!
Felicia

Hey Permies Peeps.

I'm meeting with a builder to see if they will (help) build my passive solar greenhouse. I'm trying for a 26x54-ish footprint, more-or-less lean-to, north portion half underground, and tall enough to let a banana bear fruit whenever it wants to. I'm math challenged (being a wordsmith more than a numbers gal), and am NOT confident that my guesstimate at a "30-degree slope aught to work just fine" is correct here on my little chunk of NC. I plan to us double wall polycarb for all glazing, plus windows that open on the south vertical wall, and one or two each on the E and W walls, where they are above grade (yeah, duh). Plus at least one thermostatically activated vent fan (at peak on the N wall? W wall? E wall?), or more if the FarmTek guys can convince me I need more. Do I need an evaporative cooler? My 14x50 caterpillar tunnel is a sauna 8 months of the year, and kept my in-ground turmeric safe all winter, even through the big freeze in February (one end of the tunnel is still wide open, btw). So ... I'm running a half-way farm. Everything is halfway finished or halfway fixed. I just don't want it to be half correct on something this big that I'm investing a lot of time and money in.

Location specs: zone 7b, long-lat is 35° 51' 43" N, 80° 32' 40" W (35.862110, -80.544574) according to https://www.mappr.co/latitude-longitude-finder/.

I gleaned the images in the attached file from a sun path site, calculated at the solstices (should I have looked at equinoxes?) to see the variance ... and from that guessed my S-facing sloped roof glazing should be around 30-degrees. Is this close? How should I have calculated it?  Should my non-glazed area at the top of the roof be more than 6'? Less? I don't want to be dragging shade cloth around the structure's roof during the July-Aug heat wave next year ...

Sorry to seem to naive on this. I know I have a lot to learn, so I'm hoping someone out there can help me with some shortcuts so I don't spend money I don't need to, or do a poor job with planning and negate the great benefits that passive solar allows! And I'm sure there are questions I should be asking that I just don't know I need to ask. Please help!

Looking forward to hearing back ...
Felicia