things are moving a long nicely. it's still getting a little chilly some evenings so "most" of the little plants are still not in the ground. we're hoping to sell our extra seed starts and some propagated peach & pear trees at the first Farmers Market and should have lettuce for our restaurants in a couple weeks. the greenhouse is beginning structural upgrades to firm up the frame and deflect the wind better. planting in it has begun but progress is intentionally slow. we need to learn how to regulate wind an heat before we fill it with plants. we also need to sift a Lot of dirt into buckets and set up a logical system of watering. we've got a solar powered self watering device and a soaker hose, both will probably be used when we get it in full swing. for heat we have an industrial size fan but the inverter for the solar array died and we're waiting on it's replacement. special thanks to all the volunteers that rolled through and pitched in knowledge, tools and labor this spring. our future is much brighter for your efforts. so, we designed and built a greenhouse. many things could have been done more professionally and at each step of the way our initial design was tested as well as our resolve. the design was in need of repeated adjustment until now, and it seems stabilized and functioning well; as is our resolve.
the design is intended to be expandable to include enclosure for the bug out vehicle for passive solar winter heat gain. it can be endlessly reconfigured and packed onto the bug out vehicle and relocated if need be. a similar size prefab hoop house would have cost about 1300 more than our initial cost tally for the DIY "custom" version. final cost savings ... unknown. ;~) the biggest advantage to getting the kit would have been that we could have made 1 decision about the greenhouse & been done with it. every element involved in building this DYI version was a whole 'nother decision... to research.. pro/con, need/want... everything from snap clamps to 600 dollar plastic... 19 x 35 feet using rebar, 2 inch PVC and snap clamps After purchasing and painting the first 36 10ft pvc's we had a couple of weeks of being snow blind and frozen. once all the parts arrived from their many distributors we were delayed by weather for a while. when trying to order the plastic online, the 400 dollar price tag and 200 shipping elicited audible gasps and we balked for long enough to find a local mega greenhouse with some extra plastic laying around that was too SMALL for any of their current greenhouses. the plastic is 10 years old but brand new, unused commercial greenhouse plastic, 24 ft wide and about 180 feet long. cost 100 bucks and a short road trip. day 1 of the build didn't get us very far and we continuously had to stop for soul searching discussions because for a while, before we had things figured out ... it all looked impossible. 6 ft rebar was driven into the ground to slide each vertical pvc pole onto. the south wall is 6 ft tall the north wall is 10 ft. after 1 full day of figurin' we had 1 end wall standing on it's own. we realized that we were going to have to have more than 1 free standing ladder and could only find 1. day 2 of the build we started using the tractor as a ladder and were able to get about 2/3rds of the structure cobbled together. but it was about to do some raining. in order to stretch the plastic over the structure we were going to need to stand on the bug out vehicle. the road out to the greenhouse had had a couple days to dry up. it was now or never so we went on a wild ride across the rutted and pock marked landscape and backed 'Our Big Ladder" into place just as the rain hit. we finished up the structural build and waited for a NO WIND day to unfurl the plastic. the first windless day we rolled our brand new plastic out over 180 feet of cow pies and mud holes ;~) we got the end pieces cut and 1 of them placed that day. a few days later we were back at it trying to stretch a 24 ft x 42ft piece of plastic over one side of the roof to the other. that's as far as we got that day. but now we had a 3 sided box kite and the wind and rain was back. we temporarily used the other end piece to close off our half plastic-ed greenhouse. and waited for another no wind day... and we waited... and we waited... during this waiting period i ran across an article about an innovative new greenhouse design that collected rainwater for irrigation inside the greenhouse.. i thought hmm that's cool... when the windless day came we were able to get the temporary wall moved to its proper end and the rest of the roof on. and there was much rejoicing. that night it rained. It Rained Hard. in the morning i looked out to the greenhouse and it looked fine. i got the binoculars and tried to look closer. it looked fine. after coffee i went out to see our fine lookin' greenhouse. when i got to about 50 yards away i started hearing cracking and popping sounds.. morning sprint. the greenhouse roof was sagging to about 3ft off the ground in one place, holding well over a 100 gallons of water. i tried desperately to push it up and over the 6 ft south wall to no avail. some of the roof beams had popped out. after much useless straining i realized i was not going to be able to push it over the wall. I grabbed a 55 gallon steel barrel we had moved out to use for shelving and rolled it over to The Bulge . i was able to push the water up just enough to get the barrel under it. and then i rested. there was no other choice, i had to stick a knife in the plastic. Thank God it wasn't 600 dollar plastic ;~) as the water drained i was reminded of the article about collecting water Inside the greenhouse... after deciding not to fight with the greenhouse about where it wants to put the water, we did a little reconfiguring of the pvc beams, got a shower drain kit and set about making use of the water collecting in that spot. we rolled our 300 gallon water cube out to the greenhouse on another of those days when the road out there seemed solid enough for more than foot traffic. of course we were trying to beat the rain again. as soon as we got the cube inside the greenhouse the storm hit. it was one of those storms that give little warning of it's severity. one minute it might drizzle rain then the next minute 50 mph gusts and torrential downpour. both of our brand new once used zip-up doors were wide open. w had lil' seedling trays scattered about the garden and had to get back to save them. i took on closing up the greenhouse. while w fought the wind to stay upright walking across the open field toward the garden, I struggled with snap clamps and a zipper door that i had used once. a massive gust came inside and boom, shelves crashing, poles falling and a broken zipper. luckily we had 2 more zipper kits on hand. the snap clamps hold the plastic to the frame. there are 96 of them on the greenhouse (adding 30 more soon) by the time i got the doors zipped closed at least 20 of them had popped off, making the plastic a lot looser on the frame and allowing the structure to catch more wind. oh and there was HAIL and buckets of water and extreme lightening with heavy thunder going on during all this. water was collecting All Over the Roof with the missing support beams and flapping plastic. i babysat the greenhouse through this nightmare and when it passed .. went to the hardware store for more poles for support, more braces, more connectors. between that mega storm and the next were several really hot days and we learned about getting the doors open early in the morning so you don't steam your veggies on the stalk. there were only 3 plants out there. there were some seedlings that were suppose to like it hot. they wilted their first day out there. and we were more careful about getting out early to open it up but there was that 1 day when there was just too much to do online and i didn't get out there till noon... w's ginger plant, nursed from a store bought root had lost it's erection.. he's now in intensive care. our pineapple plant seems to dig it. these few calm days allowed us to re-stretch the plastic, put in more bracing and install the shower drain in our roof for our water collection system. now that the structure seems stabilized we can start our interior decorating. Marconi Rossi Peppers, Kona Coffee, Basil and several varieties of tomatoes are germinating out there. today the interior rain catchment system was tested and worked perfectly.. it wasn't a very Hard Rain though.. hopefully that's the end of this story. ;~) photo's on the website, click the Post Title in email we've installed 2 brand new severely raised, terraced garden beds that will make for waist high food cultivation. the new beds were made lasagna style: layer of cardboard for the worms, layer of compost, layer of dirt, layer of compost, a couple layers of dirt and a layer of coconut grow medium donated to us from grittsgreenhouse.com
if you are receiving this post in your email you probably aren't seeing the photos. click the title of the post in the email to see the photos. spring planting and building is underway. there will be a couple more posts on new building projects soon, as they are completed. but there are 100's of lil' seedlings wanting to go in the ground already and we're trying to get the garden beds ready for them. unfortunately most of the jobs we have to do require digging or shoveling or lifting and we're both physically wrecked these days and plan each days work based on a) weather b) what we feel physically strong enough for and c) what just has to get done.
we've been officially welcomed to the community by the Feed&Seed this spring. last fall when i went in for Straw to help our perennials enjoy the winter; we were given Hay instead. when the guy pulled the bail out of the truck it was on; i told him that the other guy had said that was the Hay truck and i had previously gotten Straw from the other truck. Guy said no, this is straw. I took the Hay back to the garden and W says that's not straw, it's Hay. i say, that's what i thought but the guy assured me it was Straw. I took the Hay back to the Feed&Seed and said "we think this is Hay and we really need Straw for the garden beds so we're Not Planting Hay in our garden. Guys say's, yeah, that's Straw.... IT WAS HAY. and now we get to weed Hay from every garden bed that overwintered a plant. the garden bed next to the back porch is going to be a salad bar this year. we planted the green onions and nasturtium already. next will be lettuces, kale, broccoli and spinach. then currant tomatoes, cucumbers, grape tomatoes. the asparagus row seems to have been given some extra hardship by critters over the winter and so far w can only find a few shoots that have awoken from their slumber. we were able to winter 2 small persimmon trees, a ginkgo tree, 2 goji berries, a pineapple tree and a ginger root. none of which have been placed in their forever home yet. the rosemary planted on the island last year has not shown signs of life yet but the lavenders have done well except the 2 that got ate... we've got 2 more to stick in their place that w gre from seed. |
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December 2015
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