Visit My Food/Farm Blog
Nearly everyone dreams of moving to the country at some point, but few people are crazy enough to actually do it. I'm one of those few. In 1994, when I was 26, I sold my little bakery cafe, packed up 200 boxes of books & antiques, & waved goodbye to my native California. Armed with a very basic knowledge of gardening, an overenthusiastic sense of adventure, & lots of naivete, I ended up on a 280-acre, 140-year-old farm in the middle of nowhere. I became cook, gardener, shepherd, farmhand, vet, surrogate mom, wildlife expert, sheep midwife & animal undertaker. My prep school education & graphic design background were useless. I went from attending restaurant openings & gallery receptions to working the rural fire dept's BBQ booth at the crafts fair & munching fried pies at country auctions. Nine years ago I moved to an even more remote 240-acre farm which I share with sheep, chickens, 4 dogs, 9 cats, 5 very entertaining donkeys, & one really well fed farmguy. My life revolves around food.
Labels: greenhouse
posted by Farmgirl Susan at 12:54 PM
7 Comments:
What a wonderful greenhouse! I'm surprised your chives etc are so far ahead of NH. But sooooo happy to see your beautiful GREEN gardens. Thanks!
Looks great! We have a cement slab, no greenhouse, since the old owner took it with him. How wide is your slab? I'm trying to figure out if cattle panels would work for us too :) Shannon, zoooteacher@yahoo.com
Hi Kat,
You're very welcome. Chives are consistently one of the first things to pop up in the garden--which makes them such a welcome sight. And fortunately they are hardy, since, as you can see in this photo, they must withstand harsh spring freezes. Another reason I love them so much? They are never attacked by insects and are virtually maintenance free!
Hi Shannon,
Thanks. Okay, I just did some measuring and consulting with my contractor (that would be Joe). First of all, it seems I used the wrong term: we didn't actually have a foundation poured--it was a footer. The "floor" of the greenhouse is bare ground. (So the plants in the raised beds can just send roots straight into the ground if they need the space.)
On top of the footer, Joe built a wall using 8" tall, 16" long cinderblocks--three high. You only see two tiers from the outside, because we dug down inside the greenhouse to make it taller and then put that dirt along the outer walls (gave me space to plant raspberries, plus adds insulation). That way we could fit that 6'8" recycled storm door you see leading into the greenhouse. Inside there is plenty of headroom.
Standing in front of the door, looking at the greenhouse, I measured from the left side where the cattle panel is attached to the wall to the right side where it is attached--I came up with about 8-1/2 feet.
I had a greenhouse before this made from cattle panels that had no footer or cinderblock wall. The panels were just arched over and attached to logs laying on the ground. It was the same idea, with raised beds on either side of a center walkway. The walkway was dug down to make the ceiling a little higher. I could walk in there just fine, but the ceiling was was less than 6 feet high in the center. Hope this helps! : )
P.S. You only need the perimeter wall to be two blocks high to be able to use that size door (it is actually sitting on the bottom block). We just made the wall taller because we knew we were going to be digging down inside the greenhouse.
What a great greenhouse! I also liked reading your comment response to Shannon - kindof a mini post of its own. I've always dreamed of having a greenhouse but keep saying it isn't possible for me. You've got me thinking that maybe I should try it. Thanks for the info!
Seeing your pictures is really motivating me to get out and create my own greenhouse - I even have a mysterious cement pad that we inherited after buying our house (we like to call it our heli-pad) Now that's looking more and more like a great greenhouse spot.
I just did a little bit of research on building a greenhouse and got an article about the need for electricity and water and etc. etc. in order to have a greenhouse. Is that true? Because that would be a deal breaker for my budget. How "low maintenance" can my greenhouse be and still do the job?
Hi Jen,
Having this greenhouse has been really wonderful. We're in Zone 5, and I'm able to keep perennial herbs and cold tolerant greens like Swiss chard and arugula growing year round.
My greenhouse is pretty bare bones, as my budget was small, but it suits my needs. I'm not attempting to grow plants on a commercial scale or anything like that. All I wanted to do was keep some stuff alive through winter and give seedlings a head start in spring--basically extend fall and spring.
I do have electricity inside. I use it to power an inexpensive freestanding pedestal fan in the summer when it gets really hot in there, as well as an oil-filled radiator type heater with a thermostat (similar to this one) that I use on the lowest setting for a total of maybe two or three weeks in the winter at the most (just on the nights when it's in the single digits). The rest of the time I just cover up the plants with floating row covers and old bedsheets to keep them from freezing. We've had a few mornings in the teens already this fall, and everything is still doing fine in there.
Outside the greenhouse we installed a freezeless hydrant. This was done when we were running water and electric to our new building which is nearby, so it wasn't much more of an expense. Joe buried the electrical wire underground along with the plumbing pipe so that didn't require any extra work or expense (beyond the purchase of the wire).
Having the water right in the garden is very handy, but before that all I did was run a hose from another hydrant in the yard. I don't have any actual water inside the greenhouse. You really only need that if you're going to set up a drip watering system or a spray mist system. When I water in there, I simply drag the hose inside.
As I'm sure you're finding out through your research, it's very easy to spend a small fortune (or a large one!) on a greenhouse. But you can also do a great deal on a very small budget. And you can always add improvements later.
When I lived at Windridge Farm we built a sunroom/greenhouse onto the house, and it included one feature I really liked: a heavy duty ventilator fan in the wall that was set on a thermostat. When it got to a certain temperature the fan turned on (which opened the vents in the wall) and started blowing out hot air. This was so handy, as even in very cold weather a greenhouse heats up in no time if the sun is shining. The big fan was really noisy, but it wasn't meant for home use. One of these days I'd like to install one in my current greenhouse, but until then even the small freestanding fan does help.
I also put a tarp over the top of the greenhouse in summer to shade it. That makes a huge difference.
Hope this helps. Best of luck with your greenhouse project! : )
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