Tomatoes

This is the north side of the greenhouse. I planted three tomato plants there. Two of them are Bio dynamic terry tomatoes and one is a variety grown in Romania. I know they look small now, but just wait until August! I will post another picture then and you will see why I only planted three plants here. I have twelve tomato plants in my other greenhouse, so we will see what kind of a harvest I get between the two greenhouses. Like the peppers, I save the seeds from the tomatoes each year.

Peppers

Here is a picture of some of the 42 sweet red pepper plants that I planted on the south side of the new greenhouse. I started these plants from seeds I save each year. I started these plants in the house in January. You have to start peppers early, because it takes a long time for them to grow. Many of the plants have buds on them and I am looking forward to a good pepper crop. Here in Central Alberta, the ONLY way to grow peppers is to grow them in a greenhouse!

Barrels

This picture was taken from the east side of the greenhouse with the door fully open.
The bottom two barrels are full of water and are for thermal mass. During the day, they absorb the heat and radiate it back to the greenhouse at night. The upper four barrels are for the drip irrigation system, which I will explain, with pictures in a later post.

West End with Door and Window / Vent

The next step was to build doors and windows and cover them with greenhouse plastic. the window/vent has an automatic opener that opens the window /vent as the temperature inside the greenhouse rises. This item was purchased from Lee Valley (http://www.leevalley.com/home.aspx). In this picture, the door is fully opened and pulled back against the greenhouse.

West End Plastic

Next, greenhouse plastic was added to each side of the door and above the window. Again, polyfastener was used.

Cross Bracing

Wire and a turnbuckle were used for cross bracing in four places. The turnbuckle was later covered with duct tape to protect the plastic

Greenhouse plastic

For less than $300, we purchased enough greenhouse plastic to build this greenhouse. We purchased this from Northern Greenhouse Sales. It is a Superstrong Woven Poly. We have had this on our other greenhouse for many years and it works GREAT!
We laid out the plastic, secured it to the south side of the greenhouse with polyfastener purchased, from Northern Greenhouse Sales, and pulled the other end up, over and down the other side of the greenhouse.

Closup of the greenhouse on the rails

This picture shows a closeup of the greenhouse on the rail. The 2"x6" that the frame was bolted to was maneuvered up on the rails, and a 2"x4" on its side was screwed through the 2"x6" and into the 2"x4" to keep it in place. To secure the greenhouse, holes were drilled through both the 2"x4" and the 2"x6" and bolts were used to hold the two together. When we move the greenhouse, these bolts will be removed prior to moving.

Rails

There are two ways to plant a greenhouse. Planting in pots and planting directly in the ground. Both methods have pros and cons.

If you plant in pots, you limit the root size of your plants to the size of the pot, or you have to continually transplant into bigger and bigger pots.
However, it allows you to change the dirt you are planting into easily, because it is not good to plant the same thing in the same dirt year after year.

If you plant directly in the dirt, you do NOT limit the size of your plants, but it is harder to change the dirt. My husband solved that problem by building our greenhouses on rails, as you see in the picture. That way, we can move the greenhouse to one of two positions and plant the part not under the greenhouse with a different crop. We move our greenhouses every two years. I plant tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers in the greenhouse. In the second position, I plant alternate crops such as onions or squash, things that do not require as much heat. In a later post, I will show how we move a greenhouse. The rails are a two 2"x6" lengths of lumber stood on their sides. They are held up by brackets that are made out of T bars with a metal piece welded to the top. The metal piece has two holes in it to take the bolts. The T bar brackets are driven into the ground to the appropriate depth, and the 2"x6" is bolted to it.

Bolting posts to 2x 6

The corner posts on the north side were bolted to one 2"x 6" piece of lumber and the posts on the south side were bolted to a second piece of 2"x 6" lumber.

Frame stood up

Here is a picture of the frame stood up. This will give us about a 10 ft x 20 ft. greenhouse.

Standing up the frame

After the window frame was attached to the end of the garage frame, the garage frame was assembled and stood up.

Connectors

This picture shows the connectors that will be used to attach the window frame to the garage frame.

Laying out the end piece

Each end would have a door and a window/vent. In this picture, the pieces were laid out on the ground prior to construction

Building the end frame

This piece will hold the window/vent. One was built for each of the two ends

Where it all began

This picture shows the pieces of the frame laying on the ground