Grow Tunnel

[Pavel314]

My wife planted some early lettuce and covered the rows with some long grow tunnels. These are plastic sheeting attached to hoops which are stuck into the ground; picture at link.

These were fine until we had a couple of windy days, with wind gusts up to 40 m.p.h, at which point the one on the windward side was blown out of the ground.

Has anyone else tried these? If so, do you have any tricks to keep them from blowing away? I thought of putting up some sort of wind break, like a short fence, on the windward side, which is to the north and west so it wouldn't block the Sun.

Paul

[jo]

I don't have any experience with grow tunnels however just looking at it as a physics problem you basically have the bernoulli effect creating upward lift. Maybe some deer fencing could be used as an overlay -- something that lets some light through -- and adds more staking points along the length of the tunnels. Deer fencing isn't terribly spendy and you can probably roll it back up an reuse several seasons.

[Drew Lawson]

It is hard to tell from that picture, but how is the sheeting anchored along the length? I haven't used these, but normally see the suggestion to bury the edge an possibly add extra weight (like rocks or bricks).

[Pavel314]

No anchoring along the edge, it just rests on the ground. Not enough excess for rocks, unfortunately. I think I'll try covering the whole thing with wire fencing, which I have a roll of out back, and weight the fencing with rocks.

Paul

[hubops]

This one is secured with ground stakes :

I would think that fencing would make it difficult to tend ?

John T.

[J.R.]

Those look about as long as mine but thinner, I use 2 4x8 bricks midway and 3 at each end. I use concrete reinforcement wire to hold it up.