Snow load
 

It is amazing how much weight two pieces of plastic can hold hen they're poofed up with a fan. I finally got scared and put some heat to them to get the load off, there was probably 15+ inches on them

After reading your posts and seeing all the beautiful homes on the water on the cable real estate shows I was dreaming of spending a year there and a year in Florida.

Fairbanks made our news here with everything freezing over. This brought me right back to reality. Its good that you are there to protect your property. At least you are over the winter hump and have gardening to keep your mind focused.

- Lisa

That was a healthy dump of snow! Glad your greenhouses survived so well, but it sure is discouraging to know that it will take that much longer to see bare ground in the spring.

Dozens of mini-avalanches breaking off, sliding down and crashing. Whish! Boom.

Fairbanks is about 300 miles north, very harsh winters, nice summers though.

It can snow up through May, but it melts super fast, sometimes we just go from winter to summer. LOL Usually April and May are chilly, but sunny, nice for heated greenhouse growing.

I was entertained by the mini avalanches. lol

The strength of the plastic is actually the problem. It's strong enough to pull down the structure when it collapses.

The pics below are how I know that. These pics are from three years ago. I put everything back together with the old materials. I'm a little lumpy now, but the collapse cost me about thirty bucks. Now I know to take the plastic off in the winter. This was a freak storm, ten inches of mostly ice pellets. My Clearspan building survived it; my top rail high tunnel did not.

That is not good Cole Robbie. You guys can get some bad storms, I remember the 77-78 blizzards over in southern Indiana. I cannot fathom the strength of plastic, it hates tree branches, but is tuff for sure. lol How have the winters been the last several years?
Maybe consider some trusses if you want to keep plastic on, then you can store some stuff in it too. If you do a simple Kings post truss system, they will take the snow, and you can hang stuff from the trusses too. I worry the most about the winds, every year we get a couple nasty storms.

I've been reading this thread today. We get snow here in this part of Texas maybe once or twice a year and 4 inches is a lot of snow for these parts. What really messes things up here is ice storms. Freezing rain is (to me) worse than sleet. Freezing rain followed by temperatures dropping well below freezing brings a lot of tree limbs and power lines down.

We haven't had a bad freezing rain storm like that for several years, but it'll happen again. That's why we have both propane and electric heaters - just in case.

I don't have a green house, but am wondering how ice storms effect greenhouse's?

Greenhouse - they used to be green. I guess they are Hothouses now?

All these pictures of snow shiver me timbers. Exactly the reason why I like living in the south. I can deal with the heat. Snow, not so much.

Speaking of, its a chilly 54 this morning. :lol:

Glad you got that snow off! Made me feel better, at least :yes:

Real Snow
 

6000 feet in the northern Rockies, just another snow storm.

There really ought to be such a thing as greenhouse plastic which contains a netting of heating filaments. Just plug in the cord when it snows, and the plastic heats up enough to melt off the snow.

Still snowing here, by looking at others posts, I am not alone, TOGETHER WE STAND AS ONE. LOL

Does it get muddy up there after the melt Mark?

Yes, before the ground thaws it is very muddy, as soon as it thaws the water instantly vanishes. We bury our water lines 10' or deeper, it takes awhile for it to thaw.

Mark it's nice to see that you are thawing things out. Soon it will be time to be filling them up. When do you close things down? I know that you are starting your seeds now.

Patti, I shut them down in October, it takes a full month. We clean out plants, sweep, then douse everything with Greenshield. I will GS everything again before plants go back in.
Plants are coming up, I started my first batch of 306 plants, should have ripe fruit by the end of April and full on production by mid May when all of the flower people are buying flowers. They cannot resist vine ripe tomatoes.

Do you bother with saving runoff Mark, or do you have plenty of available water?. Rainwater here seems to be way better than city water.

We have plenty of water, my well water is better than any bottled water I have ever tried. We drink bottled water anytime we travel to a large city or go out of country, I don't drink recycled/ treated water.

I am heading up north this weekend, will take some pics of real snow loads. LOL

[QUOTE=AKmark;612929] They cannot resist vine ripe tomatoes.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I have the same problem... Sigh

[QUOTE=AKmark;612934]We have plenty of water, my well water is better than any bottled water I have ever tried. We drink bottled water anytime we travel to a large city or go out of country, I don't drink recycled/ treated water.

I am heading up north this weekend, will take some pics of real snow loads. LOL[/QUOTE]

My wife's aunt and boyfriend built cabin above Breckinridge Ski lift high up in the Rockies. Best water I've ever had and so cold out of tap it would hurt your teeth.:lol:. Sounds like your water is really special. :)

You ever make snow ice cream or is the air pollution too bad?
Worth

wow. great pics. stay warm.

[QUOTE=Worth1;613011]You ever make snow ice cream or is the air pollution too bad?
Worth[/QUOTE]

We don't get the bad air like Fairbanks, or even Anchorage this time of year. However, when the wind blows off of the Knik and Matanuska glaciers it can carry a lot of dust and silt if there is no ground cover, we can see the haze in the air when conditions are right.

I have not made snow ice cream for years, but the opportunity is there.

They say you're not supposed to eat yellow snow, but with a little sugar and vodka, it's not so bad:

[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;613026]They say you're not supposed to eat yellow snow, but with a little sugar and vodka, it's not so bad:[/QUOTE]

That is hilarious, hopefully you won't look like your having liver failure. LOL Snowing again, ice coming too, this may get ugly. They lost a couple buildings in Anchorage.