Thursday, April 9, 2015

H is for Hail No! Not this Year!!

As you may know, Denver enjoys the dubious distinction of being located right in the heart of "hail alley." According to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association the area "...receives the highest frequency of large hail in North America and most of the world, so residents usually can count on three or four catastrophic (defined as at least $25 million in insured damage) hailstorms every year."



Of course, hail storms are limited in size, so not everyone in the area will see a major storm every year, but judging by my own personal experience this is not an exaggeration. Seriously, in the 20 years I've owned my home I've suffered through a major hailstorm about once every 10 years.

On the plus side, you don't really have to worry about roofs wearing out from "old age" around here, because it's unlikely that they'll ever make it that long. 



But while it takes a major storm to take out roofs, siding, windows, cars etc., even your "garden variety" hail storm (yuk, yuk) can do irreversible damage to tender plants. And it is such a bummer to put a bunch of time and effort into your garden only to see it pummeled into oblivion. Trust me, I know from whence I speak!


This is what was left of my garden after a hail storm a few years back.
So, after many an afternoon glued to the weather radar, or running outside being pelted by hailstones in a frantic effort to save the tomatoes, I've finally decided to get proactive and try to hail-proof my garden.

Last year I dabbled in this by covering some of the tomato cages with screen...


And later by rigging some sheets of hardware cloth atop some 6 foot tall temporary fence posts. 



Neither solution was robust or permanent enough to work for the long term, but it was enough to convince me that the idea was sound.

So this year I've decided to construct a "hail house" around my garden.

I originally got the idea while visiting my parents. They have one of those carport canopy things like this:


So my original thought was that I'd get one of those and just use the frame and cover it with the hardware cloth.

But then I was looking around online and discovered a better idea - a portable greenhouse!


Basically, it's a metal frame with a plastic cover. My plan is to attach the hardware cloth to the frame and only put the cover on now and then when we get a freak snowstorm or something like that.

In case you're not familiar with hardware cloth, it's basically like screen, only made with stronger wires and bigger holes. Mine is quarter inch hardware cloth and it looks like this close up:



Soooo... I did some research and discovered that in order to get a greenhouse that would fit in my garden area, I'd need to widen the plot a bit.

This was actually something I wanted to do anyway because the stupid little strip of grass between the garden and the fence was a real pain to mow, so it just ended up being a total weed patch

I moved the stones against the fence to widen the plot
Next step was to put down some cardboard as a sort of weed barrier in a vain attempt to keep said weeds from infiltrating the garden:


Then I had to re-level the soil. Oy! Let's just say that step was a bit more difficult than I had imagined!

So, the greenhouse arrived and I eagerly opened the box...


OK, it wasn't really as bad as I had feared once I got all of the parts inventoried and set about following the instructions until...

These two pieces were supposed to be identical - hmmm...
Apparently one of the pieces somehow didn't get its hole punched, so I had to get out the drill and make one - which also turned out to be a bit more difficult than I had imagined, but I persevered.

And after about three hours of grunting, cursing and wishing I'd invited a few friends over to help, I managed to get the frame up. Woo Hoo!!!


Thank god I had the fence to tie the thing to as I was assembling it because otherwise I never would have gotten the thing together!

I had hoped to get the hardware cloth attached in time to show you the finished product, but alas, the bicycle beckoned and I didn't get any further than this. But the plan is to cover the curved portion with the hardware cloth, attaching it at the pipe joints with zip-ties.

You'll just have to, you know, pretend you can see it.






You get the idea, don't you?

Anyhow, I also have to figure out a more permanent system for anchoring the thing down. I'm thinking stakes pounded a few feet into the ground or something on that order. Any brilliant suggestions?

I know this may seem like overkill for folks who don't deal with hail on a regular basis - but it was sooo incredibly nice last summer not to have to worry every time there was a storm brewing. It made gardening fun for me again, and that alone will make this well worth the trouble.

So tell me... do you think I'm crazy? Have you ever had a garden destroyed by hail?


31 comments :

  1. I've only had a bad enough hail storm to wreck my garden once. What a buzzkill. Hopefully your greenhouse protects your crops! :)

    I think invisible junior high dance partner is my favorite - even the lighting is right! haha

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    1. The hail monster is a major buzzkill, isn't it?

      I just love the lolcats posing with invisible anything... the jr. high dance partner one totally cracked me up too.

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  2. With some addition covers, I see so many possibilities for this besides protecting from hail. Protecting from too bright sun, cold, wind, etc. I think you will be very happy that you invested the money and effort into this project.

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    1. That is my hope. I don't anticipate needing the plastic cover right away since small plants are simple to cover individually - but come fall it could be a lifesaver (or a tomato saver anyway) if we get an early snow storm. Plus... I'm already thinking that maybe I could hang some strings from the roof of it to tie the tomato vines to when the inevitably outgrow their cages. The possibilities are endless!

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  3. My friend had his three day old car ruined by hail. It's the worst.

    Good luck with the 2015 A to Z Challenge!
    A to Z Co-Host S. L. Hennessy
    http://pensuasion.blogspot.com

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    1. Oy! When I was in high school, I spent one summer working a temp job for an insurance agency taking hail claims after a storm with softball sized hail. The stories were rather incredible!

      Thanks for visiting!

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  4. I am sorry to hear that there are people who have even more hail than us. Yikes! So far, hail has never wrecked anything of mine, and I've only been stuck outside during hail once and the hail was tiny and not very painful.

    Totally not crazy--this sounds like a great idea.

    I have some ideas for holding your greenhouse in place permanently, but I don't promise you they're any good. One is to tie ropes to the corners and stake them out like tents. The stakes may pull up after hard rains. Also, keep it tied to your fence. Also some people sink things like this into concrete underground.

    Finally, I've heard that metal roofs stand up well to hail (which I didn't expect).

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    1. I need to figure out an anchoring system that I'm not gonna trip over because, ahem, I'm not exactly known for paying attention to where I'm going!

      And last time I had the roof replaced I opted for a "hail resistant" asphalt shingle. I have no idea if it will work or not, but since I get a discount on my homeowner's insurance for having it, it's already paid for itself.

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    2. Hmm, day-glo guy lines are probably not part of your idea of a nice garden! But maybe they could be wrapped with brightly colored ribbons and perhaps a few artificial flowers (the kind with the wire stems that you can wrap around things.

      Hail resistant asphalt. Sounds useful and affordable!

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  5. I think this is a good idea! I have a 6'x8' plastic greenhouse which we anchored to 2x4's but that's a permanent structure.

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    1. I'm probably overly concerned about anchoring - I mean, I don't plan to leave the plastic cover on for extended periods of time, so there won't be much to catch the wind (she says with an overly optimistic tone...)

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    2. Tie a long rope to it, then if it goes airborne you'll have a very big kite: )

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    3. Ha! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a crazy-lady project! :-)

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  6. No, since I have only flowers and hail is infrequent here in So.CA. But, I heard in the news today about baseball sized hail hit in the Midwest, with a tornado.

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    1. I've been through several storms with baseball and softball sized hail! The worst was the one that struck when I was walking home from school. I was sooo thankful to the kind woman who opened the door and beckoned us inside as my best friend and I were crouched under a bush trying to protect our heads with our school books!

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  7. Not hail, so far, but last summer's Tropical Storm Arthur (aka hurricane) took out most of my garden about a week after planting.

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    1. Oy! Now that's one weather issue we don't have to face here in Colorado!

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  8. We occasionally have hail...but it is tiny tiny stuff, unlikely to do anything other than make the landscape look unseasonably wintery! (We have lots of medium weather, rather than extremes...spring is here this week, we might get 20C tomorrow!!)

    I constructed a mini greenhouse recently, with help from my mum. What I learned about myself is that I have inherited my dad's total lack of patience and tendency to extreme frustration when it comes to making 'flatpack' stuff!

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    1. Ha! Well, patience is overrated in my opinion. I find that copious cursing helps. :-)

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  9. I am planning to build just such a greenhouse this year, though I am going to try to make it with PVC piping from scratch to save some $. Recently we have had hail destroy plants, mainly in the early Spring so not too devastating, but problematic nonetheless.

    I was going to secure my greenhouse (I'm sure it will give you a much longer growing season) by putting the pipe over rebar staked into the ground. I was going to fasten the plastic to big, heavy, long boards (still not sure if that will be enough...I may have to tie those boards to weights...either cinderblock or the big, round weights from the gym). I will be interested to see if the plants get enough light through your hardware cloth.

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    1. I thought about going the PVC route, but concluded it wouldn't be strong enough. Rebar is a great idea for anchoring though... too bad all of the vertical pipes have bolts going through them or you could literally insert them and hold it in place that way. Hmmmm.....

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  10. You outdid yourself on the lolcats, I'm still laughing. I just watched a video presentation that had erected a tunnel like covering for crops and thought of you. The only difference is that they used a cloth they could leave in place all year and just roll up the sides to let air in and keep it from getting so hot in the summer.

    I know you had bad luck with the wood for raised beds but I'm thinking that if you made a frame of wood and used brackets to hold your tubing in place along the inside of the frame that would work well.

    I don't have hail here but I'm thinking I need some kind of cloth that will allow water through but keep the stink bugs off my plants. it seems there's no perfect place to garden.

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    1. I do have some wood scraps, but probably not enough to frame in the entire plot... but I do have a bunch of bricks that are waiting for some purpose... hmmm... The plot could use some sort of help at the lower corners to keep the dirt level anyhow, Well.. we'll see what I come up with.

      Have you thought about frost cloth for your garden? It does let in light and water, the only problem I've had with it is that it disintegrates after about one season.

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  11. I had no idea that your area had such a hail problem. We have it sometimes in Ohio, but often folks claim hail damage around us which makes insurance rates go up for everyone, according to my brotherm...a contractor who's spent a good deal of time up on people's roofs.

    Sandy at Bridge and Beyond

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    1. I just saw something on the news about how home owner's insurance rates are going up here because of hail and fire claims. Sigh. But since insurance has replaced my roof twice - as well as siding, and windows, and doors... etc I still thin it's a bargain!

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  12. Oh wow, that is a lot of work, but I'm sure worth it if things aren't destroyed! So do you have to pay more for hail insurance there like Californians have to pay extra if they want earthquake insurance?

    betty

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    1. It's not separate insurance, but they have started putting limits on deductibles for hail damage... like your policy might have a $500 deductible for everything else, but for hail damage it's like 10% of the property value or something like that. It's still a bargain as far as I'm concerned!

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  13. I LIKE the portable green house! I've never had my garden destroyed by hail, but the neighbors garden was. It was the first summer we were in our house and I hadn't embraced the idea of a garden at that point. Mine seems to mostly suffer from late freezes because I get impatient and plant too ealry. I think the greenhouse would solve that though.

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    1. I am hopeful that this will help me to even out a whole bunch of weather related garden "issues." From the reviews I read it sounds like the covers don't last all that long especially if you leave them up for extended periods. So we'll have to see how it goes. But even if it falls apart after a few years I can always construct a new one from thick plastic sheeting.

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  14. One of the oddities of Colorado weather is how localized these storms can be. Sometimes I won't know it hailed anywhere until I drive through a neighborhood covered in green pulp. There will be a very noticeable divide showing the extent of the hail storm.

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    1. Absolutely. Last summer CatMan and I were riding up the Bear Creek trail and we got to around Kipling when suddenly there were giant white piles everywhere. It was hail leftover from a storm the previous day!

      I always find it funny when the roofing scammers start calling a day or two after a storm, only they're a few miles off. Part of me feels like I should say "Dudes... do your homework, we got nothin' in this neighborhood!" But I sorta think it's good for them to spin their wheels and waste as much energy as possible on stuff that won't pan out!

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