eric- it is a diy, we are using 20 ft pvc bows coupled with a 4' piece. the only problem with compensating for the grade by using longer bows is that our plastic, which was salvaged, is only wide enough for 25' long bows. we were planning on installing the footers completely level, which would elevate them significantly on the low side. that's why we figured a skirt wall might work to fill up the space underneath. we have very limited space, so the only way to orient the house thankfully is the way it should go, east to west. jay- we definitely plan on building raised beds inside because this house is first and foremost for growing winter greens. we actually plan on running radiant heat under the beds and creating little cold frames within the larger cold frame. i see what you did with your house and it looks good. it appears that your long sides are level and just your enwalls are off. in our case, the grade slopes both on the long wall and the endwall, and there is no other way for us to orient the house. the only reason we don't want to simply build the footers parallel to the grade is because since it is so far off, we don't want to get into issues having an endwall that is not square. we just finished repairing a hoop house for someone which was not built square to begin with, and it made the repairs take three times as long because we were constantly having to compensate for nothing actually lining up. putting in a door frame on an endwall that was about a foot unsquare was pretty tricky and we just deduced that square and level is the way to go to start from scratch. thanks for the input, i'll post some pictures once we get this thing up. hopefully the weather holds out for us this weekend.

For those of you who wanted to know about the gas well-- 50 years ago, my grandparents built a beautiful Farm and house on the property I live at. For energy, they had a gas well put in. The company who built it drilled 1200 feet in the ground and ran piping down into it. As the gas comes up the pipe by natural pressure down there, some of it is liquid, and some is a gas. It runs through various different valves in which the liquid is siphoned off into a 14 ft tall, 8-10 ft diameter steel drum. The remaining gas is run through piping to our house. Once or twice a year (I don't know exactly how often) a truck comes from the company and switches tanks. We then recieve a check for 100-150$ for the liquid gas that they take. They refine it and sell it to local power companies and such. There are a few downsides- 1. There is a huge green steel drum half a mile down the field. 2. Once in awhile(every two years or so) a pocket of gas makes its way to the surface around the pipe.....So we get a big brown stain around the well itself. 3. Our neighbors are required to have access to a well because of Mineral Rights- Why? Whose to say the gas pocket we are using ends at the property line. There is a possibility that we are taking gas from there property, so by law they are granted access. Which can be a pain- In the winter gas pressure drops, and its just strong enough to support one house....They run their heating as well....And the gas "goes out". When it goes out we have to go outside where the pipes meet the house and reset the connection to the house, because when pressure drops, the valves close. Not terribly difficult, just annoying! Our township has a regulation about gas wells- if you don't own more than 4 acres of property, you can not have one. We have 36 acres, and two gas wells. Right now, a company is going to drill a new well for commercial use. The well will be a little more than a mile into the ground, and they'll bottle it and sell it. We'll recieve between $1200 and $5000 a month depending on how much they collect. We are planning to have pipe laid from the rear gas well(about 7/8ths of a mile from our house) to bring gas from there. All our winter difficulties will no longer exist. My grandparents' house and farm burnt to the ground 20 years ago, and they rebuilt a small house. Then they passed away and my father inherited 36 of the original 60 acres, and my parents built a house here. Just a little history for you. The gas well has its good points and bad, and we like it, but I am starting to think Thermal energy may be the way to go. Feel free to ask questions- I don't know everything about it, but I'll try. Thanks, Kenny

What are you growing that needs 60 degree minimum temps? I erect a simple pvc pipe hoophouse in my zone 7 yard and heat it with a small electric space heater with the thermostat set to come on at 32 degrees. For nights that get really cold (maybe 12 nights throughout the winter where the low is in the teens) I drag in a regular kerosene heater and let it run all night. If we're going to have multiple cold nights or high winds I will cover the whole hoop house with a plastic tarp. Tricks I do to help keep it warm inside: I soak the soil floor with water on sunny days; I pack the hoophouse with as many potted plants as possible, even large empty pots of soil or bags of soil mix; I store water in buckets inside the hoophouse; I run a large box fan all the time with it pointed up towards the ceiling at an angle to circulate air. Even with all that work it will still freeze one night per winter in there but I rarely lose anything because the coldest of the cold temps is only for an hour or so rather being all night long. I mostly grow plants that can handle cool but not frozen temps. Things like citrus, brugmansias, begonias and tree ferns do better if they get a cool winter instead of a warm one.

Bought a new farm this fall so we will be doing a lot of things differently because we finally own land and do not rent! we bought within 10 miles of the old place so our customer base will not change, except for expansion. the new farm has a store frons, 2 acres of nice flat land that has been in pasture for at least 30 years and than another 5 acres of south facing slope that is eroded where the fruit trees, grape arbor and perhaps brambles will be planted in the next 12 months. we already have 3 hoophouse but none are up yet (but should be by december) we plant to put onions seedlings into part of one hoophouse and have the rrest ready for early spring plantings.We plan on building a greenhouse (heated, not moveable) ASAP (but ASAP with a new farm with old buildigs is not all that quick). this season we grew around 100 different items and next year we will be without asparagus, raspberries, apples and pears as we have few perenials and the fruit trees here are in dismal shape so cannot depend on getting a crop from them and we are missing brambles altogether. We did a CSA and 2 farmers' markets this year and plan on doing those again plus we will have a farm store on a busy federal 2 lane highway that will be open probably 6 days a week. if all goes as expected we should double our gross income in 2006.