Tag Archives: greenhouse progress

The Fair was a great success! Phew! Sigh! I’m exhausted!

The Santa Fe Master Gardener’s Spring Garden Fair is over. Phew! Sigh! Putting on the garden fair on is a lot of work for all us Master Gardeners + I was one of the speakers this year so double the work for me. Today the Journal North had a great article about the Garden Fair and my lecture on the front page. Really nice. The writer actually wrote down a lot of the tips I gave! Here is the article if you want to read it:   http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2013/04/28/north/sound-advice-from-the-tomato-lady.html

Now I just need to recover and the best way to do that is be in my garden! So today Tom came over and we worked on the greenhouse and got 9/10 of the roofing on. More progress! I will take some more pictures soon.

The Greenhouse is Coming Along!

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Two winters ago I started planning my future greenhouse. I wasn’t sure if I would build a hoop house or a traditional greenhouse but then a friend, Kate, donated 10 big windows from her sunroom when she replaced them. I got a great screen door from someone else and I got some large wood panels from another friend. SO I decided to build a more traditional style of greenhouse. Then when I rented a Bobcat to regrade my driveway, I leveled an area for the future greenhouse and ALSO leveled and scraped the ground for adding more garden space. My friend, Caleb and I put the posts in last January, jackhammering the frozen holes out and then he got a full-time job teaching and could not help anymore. So instead I concentrated on expanding the garden last spring. Which I did—to the tune of an additional 1000 square feet!

Meanwhile the greenhouse posts just sat there and some were twisting badly.  This spring, another friend of mine, Tom, offered to help me finish it and has carpentry experience. So Tom is helping me finish building my greenhouse (or should I say I’m helping him) every Friday morning from 8am-12pm. I’ve set a deadline for myself to try to finish it by May 15th. Hopefully we will make it by then. It is moving along nicely. So far we have replaced most of the twisted uprights, got the rafters and purlins done for the roof, the west side framing is almost done, the window frames are built on the south side but we won’t put the windows in until the end, the bottom sides of the future garden beds are done on both the south and north sides and are redwood. We will frame the windows on the north side this week. Still have to get the roofing material, the wall material that is not going to be windows and the side with the door done. I am so excited that it is finally moving along! PROGRESS!!

New Gardens-new bruises!

I love hearing about someone putting in a new garden or adding on to their existing one or adding another big feature in their gardens. Are any of you doing something new and exciting in your gardens this year? I would love to hear about your projects!

For me, I’ve bitten off a lot. Between putting in a new greenhouse and adding on a huge new section, I have my hands full. And I forget I’m not 30 yrs old anymore (tell that to my brain) and my body let’s me know it too after a hard day building, hauling, shoveling, digging-you get the picture. Today I dropped a 2 x 6 on my nose while 8 feet on a ladder while working on the greenhouse. Luckily, I didn’t break it! I should own stock in Advil…

working on greenhouse

GREENHOUSE PROGRESS-slow…

In October, I scored some glass panels from our friend, Kate, who replaced her garden room windows and offered them to me. Thanks Kate! In early November, when I rented the Bobcat, I cleared the land to get ready for the greenhouse. It will be 16′ x 12′ interior space when done.  In December we had some really cold nights that started the ground to freeze but it has warmed up a little in January so far. Here is the progress for now..

Jan 7- Beautiful day 50°F. Been beautiful for 2 weeks now. Caleb came over with his JACKHAMMER and we started digging the holes out for the greenhouse posts. We need 8 holes dug. Two of which are in frozen ground. Hence the jackhammer. We got 4 holes done, 2 holes almost done (need to dig them out 2 more inches each) and 2 that are gonna be a bitch because they are in the shade and really frozen. Wonder how far the ground is frozen before we reach thawed ground.

Jan 8-Cold and snowy. Not a lot of snow but can’t do any garden digging today. Hope it warms up again. If we can get the posts set, then I can go out and start to frame the greenhouse on nice winter days.

Jan 9-Looks like it will be in the 40’s for this next week. Not sure when the ground will warm up enough again to work on the post holes. Wah! I would like to get it done by spring to start some seeds inside-March/April. Perhaps this is wishful thinking…sigh.