pacamom wrote: AspenValley - have you ever used bubble wrap in between the layers of plastic on the hoophouse? We were going to try that this winter.
We've gotten a lot of our information from "The Winter Harvest Handbook" written by Eliot Coleman.
Yes, we used it on the ends of the hoophouse when that got torn but this will be the first time on the whole thing. It worked very well. It also seemed that everything lasted longer than it would have individually. Did you buy the special heavy-duty stuff made for greenhouses or regular packing bubble wrap? We are debating. We used the greenhouse type last time, but it is pricier. I think it may be worth it though as it will undoubtedly hold up better plus it's thicker so more airspace I think.
I haven't read Winter Harvest but I've got another book by Eliot Coleman, Four Season Harvest. It is full of great ideas, I've barely scratched the surface of the possibilities I think.
pacamom wrote: We haven't gotten the bubble wrap yet. But the plastic covering is greenhouse plastic. I was just gonna start saving regular bubble wrap.
I'm just concerned that if I use the regular bubble wrap it won't be UV stable and may disintegrate in our high altitude sun too quickly. The special greenhouse stuff is much thicker and tougher, too. But But if I'm going to put it in between the layers of poly greenhouse cover, I don't want to have to tear off and replace perfectly good poly (that usually lasts us 5-6 years) because the bubble wrap failed.
I think if I was going to try regular bubble wrap I would just tape it up on the inside of the poly cover and not sandwich it between layers so if it didn't work I could take it down without tearing the whole cover off.
This is the stuff we have used in the past, it really is much tougher and thicker plastic than the stuff sold for packing purposes. I have heard Farmtek has it a little cheaper, but I haven't done the comparison yet.
