"DOMES" For Farm And Garden
Homes aren't the only buildings most rural people with gardens will have to put up.
There are barns, stables, tool sheds, woodsheds, spring houses, bunkhouses for summer guests, chicken and other poultry housing, dairies, greenhouses, workshops, housing for stills, bio-gas generators and gas tanks, and just various buildings for random "I'll be damned if I'm keeping this in the house" sort of stuff.
If you garden in a short-season area, or in a climate with a reasonably severe winter, you will want to employ such items as cold frames, hot frames, and frost protectors over tender plants during inclement weather.
One idea for a simple throw-up-a quick-shelter-sorta frame is a
"geodesic dome".
Although geodesics can be as complicated as you like, the simple pentagram dome is one of our favorites.
We make them out of saplings, PVC pipe, trash picked metal conduit, or even old broomsticks, in every size from a three-foot- high dome to protect a pumpkin mound or potato patch to an eight-foot-high dome to cover a chicken yard, become a tent, or protect a haystack.
They are versatile, easily made and quickly built, and break down just as easily.
These directions may sound tricky at first, but I suggest that you start by using plastic soda straws and yarn.
Punch a hole through the end of each soda straw, shove the yarn through with a big needle, and make your tabletop model. Twisty ties and Q-tip swabs will work too...
Once you've done it in small scale, you'll see how disgustingly easy it is and you'll be able to do huge versions with all sorts of materials.
For larger-scale domes, start with twenty poles all the same length, and five more that can be the same length or longer.
Twenty-five identical poles will make a high, hemispherical dome with its center point about 3/4 of the length of the poles.
If you want a wide, low dome like a burial mound, make the last five poles longer than the others.
Drill a hole in both ends of each pole, or if they're wood and you want to be really fancy, set eye-bolts into each end.
Collect a bunch of cable ties, or plastic clothesline, wire...or anything else that can be used to tie and won't degrade away.
Take the first five poles and tie them together at one end in a bunch, spreading them out so that they point outward in five equal directions, star like.
Now take five more and tie them between the outstretched ends of the poles so that you make a pentagon around the star.
When you tie the last one together, the center of the star will raise up a little.
You should now have something like the Chrysler symbol.
Tie two poles to each corner of the pentagon and spread them out sideways in opposite directions.
When you spread them far enough, each will touch a pole tied on the next corner of the pentagon and create a triangle whose top edge is the pentagon side; tie them together.
Now you have a big star, a pentagon-star with five triangular points coming off the sides, made of a total of ten triangles.
Now you tie in the final five poles, which obviously (and it should look obvious to you by this point in the building process) join the points of that star.
Since they are very wide apart, as you fasten in the tie poles the whole thing will heave up into a dome.
If you're building a big dome out of heavy material rather than a small, light, portable dome out of PVC, you'll want helpers to lift up on it at this point.
Now you've made a simple dome, based on the five points of a star, that can be covered with tarps (especially round pool covers), clear plastic, chicken wire, camouflage netting, blankets, canvas, or if it's large and sturdy and you'd like to make it permanent, shingle it with pieces of carpet soaked in latex paint.
(Check in the dumpsters behind flooring stores for scrap carpet, and ask contractors for half-empty cans of paint.)
Such a structure could be several rooms in a row, or in a circle, or with one in the middle and others fanning out like the cells of a beehive.
We've used the dome pattern to make camping tents, especially for a big family or household where everyone wants their own tent; just have the smaller tents poking out from the "main room" of the dome like spokes.
We've also helped to build a small summer camping shelter out of saplings on a friend's Vermont homestead; we put up several domes in a row, abutted with one upward-pointing triangle in each one tied together for a doorway.
The possibilities are only as endless as your imagination and how much material you have to cover them with, and the dome will stand until the material rots away.
Of course, if you're a gardener, your first thought is plant protection.
I've made several domes out of 1 inch PVC pipe, with each 10 foot (3+meter) length cut into three parts.
This makes a nice between-three-and-four-feet-tall dome which can be covered in plastic.
Get under the dome and tape the plastic to the PVC with duct tape, and then move the whole shebang (it's very light, and I can usually move it myself) onto the garden.
For especially cold weather in spring, use two layers of plastic.
If you have high winds, you may want to stake down the dome and the edges of the plastic.
I throw one up over my tomatoes and peppers around the time of the first frost every fall, and it extends their season for almost a month.
A friend of mine built one with 10' lengths of wider PVC, so that it stood pretty tall, and managed to cover an entire hill-planting of late corn until it matured.
If you have a low, sprawling crop to be saved, like pumpkins or melons, use very long poles at the base to make a low wide dome, or forgo the base poles altogether and just stake the corners at whatever height and width you like.
If you have poultry, another very good use for star geodesics is covering a chicken yard.
We'd love to be able to free range our chickens, but we have a very high predator problem. One year we lost all of our ducks, geese, and baby chicks to predators, mostly coyotes and bobcat.
We also have a down yonder neighbor who freaks if an animal wanders onto his perfect lawn, so it's important that the laying hens keep from straying.
However, it's healthiest for them (and us, as we're eating their eggs) if they get regular sun and dirt, so we compromised by covering a 10' dome made of 3" maple saplings with various wire fabrics and silver heavy duty tarps stapled on for a partial roof...
It's movable enough so that we can shift it every year to an adjacent patch of ground, and our chicken house is in the form of an A-frame that fits right into one of the triangles of the house and is also portable.
It was really quite amusing to watch a big hawk come down onto the top of the dome and stare through the chicken wire; he sat there for over an hour, probably doing the hawk version of drooling, but was completely frustrated by the dome situation.
Domes are easy to build, put up, and take down, and can be used for so many things that I can't even think of them all here...
Build domes & Teach others.
Bundle the poles and a pool cover onto the roof rack of your vehicle and travel anywhere, and put up a hell of a shelter when you arrive.
And when the crowd comes around a ooohing and aaahing and asking you how it's all done.....well, you'll be able to tell 'em...
More Dome information is located at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome
IMB
Homes aren't the only buildings most rural people with gardens will have to put up.
There are barns, stables, tool sheds, woodsheds, spring houses, bunkhouses for summer guests, chicken and other poultry housing, dairies, greenhouses, workshops, housing for stills, bio-gas generators and gas tanks, and just various buildings for random "I'll be damned if I'm keeping this in the house" sort of stuff.
If you garden in a short-season area, or in a climate with a reasonably severe winter, you will want to employ such items as cold frames, hot frames, and frost protectors over tender plants during inclement weather.
One idea for a simple throw-up-a quick-shelter-sorta frame is a
"geodesic dome".
Although geodesics can be as complicated as you like, the simple pentagram dome is one of our favorites.
We make them out of saplings, PVC pipe, trash picked metal conduit, or even old broomsticks, in every size from a three-foot- high dome to protect a pumpkin mound or potato patch to an eight-foot-high dome to cover a chicken yard, become a tent, or protect a haystack.
They are versatile, easily made and quickly built, and break down just as easily.
These directions may sound tricky at first, but I suggest that you start by using plastic soda straws and yarn.
Punch a hole through the end of each soda straw, shove the yarn through with a big needle, and make your tabletop model. Twisty ties and Q-tip swabs will work too...
Once you've done it in small scale, you'll see how disgustingly easy it is and you'll be able to do huge versions with all sorts of materials.
For larger-scale domes, start with twenty poles all the same length, and five more that can be the same length or longer.
Twenty-five identical poles will make a high, hemispherical dome with its center point about 3/4 of the length of the poles.
If you want a wide, low dome like a burial mound, make the last five poles longer than the others.
Drill a hole in both ends of each pole, or if they're wood and you want to be really fancy, set eye-bolts into each end.
Collect a bunch of cable ties, or plastic clothesline, wire...or anything else that can be used to tie and won't degrade away.
Take the first five poles and tie them together at one end in a bunch, spreading them out so that they point outward in five equal directions, star like.
Now take five more and tie them between the outstretched ends of the poles so that you make a pentagon around the star.
When you tie the last one together, the center of the star will raise up a little.
You should now have something like the Chrysler symbol.
Tie two poles to each corner of the pentagon and spread them out sideways in opposite directions.
When you spread them far enough, each will touch a pole tied on the next corner of the pentagon and create a triangle whose top edge is the pentagon side; tie them together.
Now you have a big star, a pentagon-star with five triangular points coming off the sides, made of a total of ten triangles.
Now you tie in the final five poles, which obviously (and it should look obvious to you by this point in the building process) join the points of that star.
Since they are very wide apart, as you fasten in the tie poles the whole thing will heave up into a dome.
If you're building a big dome out of heavy material rather than a small, light, portable dome out of PVC, you'll want helpers to lift up on it at this point.
Now you've made a simple dome, based on the five points of a star, that can be covered with tarps (especially round pool covers), clear plastic, chicken wire, camouflage netting, blankets, canvas, or if it's large and sturdy and you'd like to make it permanent, shingle it with pieces of carpet soaked in latex paint.
(Check in the dumpsters behind flooring stores for scrap carpet, and ask contractors for half-empty cans of paint.)
Such a structure could be several rooms in a row, or in a circle, or with one in the middle and others fanning out like the cells of a beehive.
We've used the dome pattern to make camping tents, especially for a big family or household where everyone wants their own tent; just have the smaller tents poking out from the "main room" of the dome like spokes.
We've also helped to build a small summer camping shelter out of saplings on a friend's Vermont homestead; we put up several domes in a row, abutted with one upward-pointing triangle in each one tied together for a doorway.
The possibilities are only as endless as your imagination and how much material you have to cover them with, and the dome will stand until the material rots away.
Of course, if you're a gardener, your first thought is plant protection.
I've made several domes out of 1 inch PVC pipe, with each 10 foot (3+meter) length cut into three parts.
This makes a nice between-three-and-four-feet-tall dome which can be covered in plastic.
Get under the dome and tape the plastic to the PVC with duct tape, and then move the whole shebang (it's very light, and I can usually move it myself) onto the garden.
For especially cold weather in spring, use two layers of plastic.
If you have high winds, you may want to stake down the dome and the edges of the plastic.
I throw one up over my tomatoes and peppers around the time of the first frost every fall, and it extends their season for almost a month.
A friend of mine built one with 10' lengths of wider PVC, so that it stood pretty tall, and managed to cover an entire hill-planting of late corn until it matured.
If you have a low, sprawling crop to be saved, like pumpkins or melons, use very long poles at the base to make a low wide dome, or forgo the base poles altogether and just stake the corners at whatever height and width you like.
If you have poultry, another very good use for star geodesics is covering a chicken yard.
We'd love to be able to free range our chickens, but we have a very high predator problem. One year we lost all of our ducks, geese, and baby chicks to predators, mostly coyotes and bobcat.
We also have a down yonder neighbor who freaks if an animal wanders onto his perfect lawn, so it's important that the laying hens keep from straying.
However, it's healthiest for them (and us, as we're eating their eggs) if they get regular sun and dirt, so we compromised by covering a 10' dome made of 3" maple saplings with various wire fabrics and silver heavy duty tarps stapled on for a partial roof...
It's movable enough so that we can shift it every year to an adjacent patch of ground, and our chicken house is in the form of an A-frame that fits right into one of the triangles of the house and is also portable.
It was really quite amusing to watch a big hawk come down onto the top of the dome and stare through the chicken wire; he sat there for over an hour, probably doing the hawk version of drooling, but was completely frustrated by the dome situation.
Domes are easy to build, put up, and take down, and can be used for so many things that I can't even think of them all here...
Build domes & Teach others.
Bundle the poles and a pool cover onto the roof rack of your vehicle and travel anywhere, and put up a hell of a shelter when you arrive.
And when the crowd comes around a ooohing and aaahing and asking you how it's all done.....well, you'll be able to tell 'em...
More Dome information is located at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome
IMB
Last edited:
