Author: Steve Glass

Rachel had a great idea! We used some of our shade cloth to cover the building. Heat exhaustion is no fun. I did that before when I was invincible young man just out of college. When I get back in the field to add the parallel support lines and deep water culture troughs I can use it there as well!

Have some leveling adjustments to make and then I start on the walls.

This is Ding Dong, foothills for the Texas Hill Country. That means ‘rock’ and a lot of it. Normally, you would be able to sink the support posts using an 8 pound sledge, but not here. To the rescue, on Bosch hammer drill with a 33″ 1 1/8 drill bit supplemented by a 15″ 1 1/2 drill bit.

Using the hammer drill, we were able to drill thru much of the limestone or at least shatter it enough to get the pipes in the ground. When it got really rough we would put the 1 1/2″ bit on to increase the diameter of the hole. We put water down the holes to help make the caliche  gummy while be hammered in the poles.

 

You can see the limestone coming from the  hole.

We would fill the hole with water, ream out the excess mixture, add more water, then set the pipe.

There are advantages and disadvantages to height!

 

The greenhouse is designed to be 100 ft long. Requiring supports every 3 feet. Using 1 3/4 galvanized fence posts cut in half I prepped 34 pipes. Because of the wind, we decided to use long support posts. Once the posts are cut, one end is predrilled with a 1/4 hole 12″ from the top to anchor the hoop. 

Don’t forget to remove the burrs from the metal. If it doesn’t cut you it definitely will puncture the greenhouse covering.

 

After the ‘gale’ winds on the plateau, we found it was necessary to pin the ground cover down every 18 inches.