Sunday, July 22, 2007

Greenhouse #2

After the last greenhouse went for a walk I decided that this time I should make it a little bit bigger. My Internet research showed that a larger greenhouse would work better because of it's thermal capacity. This time I decided to make it 8' wide x 16' long by 8' tall. The last one was a little cramped so this would actually give me some room to move around inside. This spring (2007) the weather finally turned nice enough that I could make a nice level spot for it.

Taking into consideration that I may be moving some day I wanted to keep my design as portable as possible. I decided to bolt the walls together so that they could easily come apart. The 8x16 back wall is a bit on the large side but it's still manageable with a couple of people. I liked the solid back wall design of my last greenhouse so I decided to keep that basic design. This time I thought I would try curved roof though. After a couple of days I got it all put together and planted. My goals were to try and get two growing seasons spring-summer and summer-winter. I wasn't able to plant very early this time because the ground hadn't warmed up very well.

I did manage to get a crop of radishes, turnips, and lettuce before I took of on my summer adventures. The problem was that during my summer adventures it got a little hot and baked the plastic covering, which was just construction plastic from Home Depot. When wind started blowing it just shattered and made a lovely mess of the yard. I guess I need more ventilation next time. Since August and September are pretty warm I decided to just leave the covering off and let the two solid walls protect the plants from excess wind.

Back to the drawing board for a new and improved design.