What’s on the Horizon?

Greenhouse will go on far side of beds

It’s never ending around here. A week doesn’t go by where we don’t have some crazy project in the works. And it’s always a mad rush trying to find the time to get everything done before winter. Some projects just seems to take on a life of their own and end up getting completed fairly quickly, like our rabbit hutch. I was rather amazed how quickly Tom got that built. Other projects just seem to be waiting in the starting gate.

Our next big project is a greenhouse. We really need one before fall. This year I planted our peppers in pots because I want to keep them for next year. Our weather in the U.S. generally gets a bit too cold for them so we treat most of them as annuals here. Well, what better way to save money than to not have to buy pepper seeds anymore? So this year I planted them in 5 gallon pots with the hopes to keep them in our non-existent greenhouse over the winter. We know where we want to put the greenhouse. It’s just a matter of clearing and leveling the area. Though we don’t really have to “level” it as it’s fairly level. But clearing it is whole other project. There’s an old raised bed, a rickety potting bench with all sorts of junk stacked on it, couple hundred square feet or stacked pavers (for our front walkway project), a wood pile, a mini greenhouse that I’ve outgrown, and two compost bins. Oh, and we’ll probably have to move our fig tree. Not sure where though.

We’re not going to be buying a greenhouse. To save money we’re actually going to build it from the ground up so to speak. Since we don’t have very cold winters we’ll just be using greenhouse film instead of the polycarbonate panels, which would cost an arm and a leg. Not to mention my experience with those panels is that they yellow after just a couple of years and get brittle so they end up needing to be replaced about as often as the film. If I don’t need to spend the money on the panels, why do so? My dream greenhouse of course would be a steel frame one with glass glazing. But alas, I don’t have several thousand to throw at something like that.

What I’m really excited about is that once we have the greenhouse I can start growing starts for other people as a side business.