Some recent projects I have been working on.

Here are a couple of the projects I have been working on in the last few days. It helps me to put them down on electronic paper this way, in showing someone else I finally get things organized in my own mind!

A project I have wanted to do for several years but haven’t had the time, money or knowledge to do, is building a greenhouse. Last spring I built my first hoop house in the garden and I had so much fun with it and had so much success that I have wanted to go much bigger ever since. From time to time I have helped friends out in their two 40X80 (I think that’s the size) greenhouses and I don’t think there is any work I enjoy more than that so why not build one of my own?

Yesterday I had an idea, I have an old wooden Quonset building that has a leaky south roof face but a good north face and end walls, better yet, it has an excellent cement foundation, good garage doors with glass and a dirt floor. It’s 35X60 and situated with a perfect south exposure. What could be better for converting to a greenhouse? After looking at it for a while and doing some figuring, I decided it was possible and should work well, if I can only get the work done and the materials ordered! First off, I need to put up a new ridge beam, which I can make out of supplies I have here now. Then I need to completely remove the south wall, which is in terrible condition anyway, and use some of the laminated beams from that as supports for the south wall that will be plastic. Without going into too much detail, using wires and some wood pieces, I should be able to get the building ready for plastic pretty easily. Today I did some shopping through catalogs and online and came up with a few figures.

I’ll use a double layer of greenhouse grade plastic with a blower to keep them apart for dead air space and to keep them from flapping themselves to shreds in the wind.
Plastic will cost $341.25 before shipping.
Then I want to put a reflective insulation layer on the north wall in order to dramatically increase the light reflected onto the plants and to keep a little more of the heat in than would be if I left it as it is, after painting the wood to preserve it I can staple up a layer of the reflective insulation for $201.00 before shipping.
From experience gained last year in the hoop house, I’ll need shade for some parts of some days. I still haven’t figured out the grade of shade cloth I’ll need for this climate and for what I want to grow but for 30% shade cloth it would cost $249.00
Of course there will be additional costs like staples, nails, tape, and I’m still coming up with things, but the major costs are fairly simple. $800 before shipping. Then I need an irrigation system. Last summer the watering became a nightmare just in the garden and I don’t want to do that again this year so I started calculating water needs and am working on drawing out the irrigation system both for the garden and berries and for the greenhouse. Since I doubt my two wells will handle the water I’ll need (I might be pleasantly surprised) I calculated how much water I can get from rainwater off the roofs to use as an additional source for the greenhouse and garden when the well was being used hard and I was too pressed for time to haul water like I did last year.
With the roof area I have I should be able to get 6,000 gallons for every inch of rain that falls. It doesn’t sound like a lot of water but we ought to get more than an inch of rain this summer so it could add up quick if I have the storage space. I’ll spare you the boring calculations of how much water I might need for various areas in the greenhouse and for the garden. At least until I am sure I have them at least close to accurate!
I want a drip system for the greenhouse, and not having electricity makes me look at other options for pumping the water. Water gives .43 PSI for every foot it is raised and drip irrigation doesn’t need much pressure. Since rainwater is coming off of some very tall roofs it is already high so I should try to use that to my advantage in some way. Unfortunately, storing 20,000 gallons of water 20 feet in the air poses some engineering challenges for me and I haven’t figured that part out yet. 160,000 pounds is a lot of weight to hold up in the air! That’s two fully loaded semi trucks weight of water that I don’t want to come crashing down on my head if my water tower collapses. It may take a bit of time, and I am not planning on getting this springs supply of plants started in this greenhouse but I’ll plan for next spring for sure.