Remember the greenhouse we bought a couple of weeks ago? Well, it’s up! It wasn’t that hard to put together, although the line drawing was a bit difficult to translate into practical application. We re-did a few bolts as we went along but, overall, it was a fairly easy job of about three hours from start to finish.
The frame is pretty sturdy and the plastic’s not bad. I think we can get two years, possibly three out of it if the wind gives us half a chance. Of course, the day we put the danged thing up, we got 35 to 45 mph wind gusts overnight. It stood the test, but I’d sure like to skip the high winds in future!
Now all those yummy greens that have been growing under several low tunnels can grow in the greenhouse all winter and I can stop covering and uncovering all the raised beds with every temperature fluctuation.
We’re finding that the weather is not very predictable here in our little portion of the North Carolina mountains. When the local weather forecast says 36 overnight, we wake up to find it’s 20 degrees. Or 42 degrees. When the local forecast says sunny, we get clouds and rain showers. When the forecast says, yep, for sure you’re getting two inches of rain, we have a bright sunny day. Go figure. That’s okay though. With our new affordable little greenhouse, we’re one step closer to being self sustaining. The greenhouse makes working around weather changes as easy as rolling up a few windows. And, as a bonus, we can grow more greens every winter in our greenhouse than we currently do in our low tunnels. Looking forward, if we get a bit more growing area ready outside and plant more storage crops, the local grocery won’t see us very often. We think that’s a good thing.
We’re looking forward to the rest of the journey! Here’s a few pix of our newest addition:
