"Higgs Boson" wrote in message
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On Aug 17, 12:32 am, "Farm1" wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message

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Farm1 wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
Kay Lancaster wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 13:46:47 -0700, Todd
wrote:

Have any ideas that will hold up to 35 to 45 MPH winds three
times a week and 75 MPH gusts two or three times a year?

Got an old book for you to ask the library for: Winter Flowers in
Greenhouse
and Sun Heated Pit:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/winter...use-and-sun-he...
or the original Winter flowersin the sun-heated pit, including the
lean-to greenhouse as a complement to the pit:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/winter...-heated-pit-in...

Exact same principles hold for cold climate winter veggies -- and in
high wind
areas, the pit makes a lot of sense.

Kay

How would one prevent it from filling with water?

Put it on the side of a slope.

So a sun-ward facing slope with a little ridge upslope to take away the
water to either side, a plastic lid and keep the roos off. Thinks.....

The chap who I knew and who had the occasional roo problems, had 2 sun
pits.
IIRC, one was in flattish ground (although I cna't now truly remember this
one) and the other was most definitely on the side of a slope. I remember
the slope one best because I recall walking into it from the eastern
side -
I can't recall though if he had some sort of door arrangement on it - I
dont' think so. i might even try to call him and ask him aobut them and/or
see if he'd be amenable to having me come and photgraph them. Mind you, if
I do do this, I'll bet I find that my memory is highly faulty.

This chap lives in a very moist place - he's had to plant his trees up on
mounds so waterlogging would be a potential problem for sunpits so he
would
be interested in avoiding that. He also has a genuine Chinese walking
tractor which really impressed me.

***Could he have drained the area?

No. I know that is one thing he hasn't done in terms of where his sun pits
are. These things aren't he least bit posh - effectively they are just deep
slit trenches cut into the ground - think of WWI warfare trenches and you
get the idea - on top of that he's put the clear polycarbonate equivalent of
what I think USians call ripple iron????

HB: Considering that the early Israeli
pioneers drained the malarial swamps along the ocean,
it doesn't seem like an insuperable task. Or was the area just too
large?

He's one retired man on a moderate pension living alone on about 200 acres.
He's had some ponds dug, but around those ponds he's still had to plant his
trees up on mounds - as I said earlier, it's a very wet area (in terms of
rainfall). His pits werent' close to these ponds but I cna't now recall
qyuite how far awya they would have been - it'd be about 20 years since I've
been there.