It’s a Greenhouse!

Finally, the greenhouse is up and running!  Within a few hours of installing the polycarbonate panels I rushed off to the soil mart to fill my little truck with fish compost for the planting beds and transplanted my pot-bound tomatoes, peppers and melons into nice rich soil.  They are so happy, they are growing like crazy!  My peat moss/fish compost blend is probably a little nitrogen rich, the plants greened up almost immediately and are producing tons of vegetative growth, probably at the expense of setting more fruit.  Fortunately the tomatoes and peppers had already set a decent crop before they were turned loose in the greenhouse. The melons might not fruit, but melons are always a crapshoot around here anyways.

Greenhouse frame complete

The construction of the greenhouse went pretty smoothly, we did have to back up a couple of times when we put things together backwards or upside down, but it all became apparent before we went too far in the wrong direction.  Now that we have one under our belts, I’m sure we could repeat the process in half the time.

Time to install the polycarbonate panels

Once again I have to thank Russ Davis, the agent for BC Greenhouse Builders on Vancouver Island, for his prompt responses when we had questions during  construction of the greenhouse.  A couple of times I took pictures and emailed him with a question when we were stumped.  He must monitor his email constantly because, without fail, he had an answer for us almost immediately… like within an hour!  That’s incredible service.

First panel!

I use the term ‘we’, but I must really give all the credit to my husband, who watched the video and read the instructions many, many times before and during construction and who essentially put the thing together with me serving as grunt and gofer.  It’s a good thing he’s handy, because if I can’t prune it to make it smaller or fertilize it to make it bigger, I’m pretty much lost…

They go up pretty quickly

We have installed (yes, that ‘we’ means HE) the automatic vent openers that came with the greenhouse and they are working admirably.  I hope that with four big vents, a door in either end and a little shade on the south side (provided by my pergola and grapevines) and the west side (provided by the shed) I can avoid using shade cloth during the hot summer months… time will tell.

Aaand… it’s a greenhouse!

There is a little cedar siding that needs installing on the shed, the cabinet and sink in the greenhouse is not yet finished, and I have a bunch of painting to do (yes, that’s one job that I CAN do) before the project is complete, but the greenhouse is functional.  We will putter away on the finishing touches over the remainder of the summer.

Complete with tomato plants

My super comfy rattan swivel rocker is tucked into a corner, where I can put my feet up and contemplate life while watching the tomatoes grow.  Lucky me!

My comfy chair… time to sit down and take a break