Off-Grid in West Virginia

Monday

Linda

After months of sitting in boxes in our mudroom the greenhouse has finally been assembled and put into place next to the garden.  We started on it Saturday afternoon and finished it up on Sunday morning.  The weather forecast for both days was good and we took advantage of them to get the job done.  Spring weather can be finicky, like today, stormy and rainy, and although warm in the upper sixties this afternoon, its supposed be cold and nasty by end of the week.

Starting the Greenhouse

As always our life savers John and Carol were here to lend a helping hand.  Carol did an excellent job following the printed instructions and leading us step by step.

"SAY WHAT???"

John and Sonny did the grunt work snapping the pieces together like a giant Lego puzzle. They work really well as team and when we hit a few snafus they always came up with a solution.  Usually because they didn’t listen to the given instructions and got ahead of themselves. All you ladies out there know what I’m talking about, but we love them just the same.

I felt a bit out of my element as my hands did not have the strength to snap some of the pieces together which can be very frustrating when you want to help.  So Carol and I designated ourselves to finding the numbered parts and laying them out for the guys as they needed them.  We were also the coffee hostesses keeping the guys going with the elixir of life.  Gotta keep those men happy.

Putting in the louver window.

All in all the construction of the greenhouse was pretty simple.  Basically you build a frame and put the UV protected panes in the designated grooves.  Everything is numbered. The only real problem we ran into was with the construction of the base.  We bought a slightly larger model than the standard size.  The manufacturer uses a standard sized base and then adds extension pieces as needed, which was fine except for the fact that some of the holes did not line up correctly when the extension pieces were added.  Sonny and John figured out a solution and everything seemed to fit together properly by drilling a few holes and some extra screws.

This greenhouse has a louvered window and two roof vents that will help control how much heat builds up inside.  You don’t want to burn your plants.  That is a mistake that could easily happen if you don’t pay attention to the temps.  Don’t be surprised if you see a blog entitled “Scorched Seedlings.”

Finished greenhouse

It feels good to have that big job finished and the boxes out of my mudroom.  We just need to add a few finishing touches.  A couple of metal rods to anchor the greenhouse down, some gravel spread out to make a floor and a row of shelves will put it in shape to start incubating some seedlings for the garden.  It’s time to get dirty.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 21st, 2011 at 9:33 pm and is filed under Off-Grid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.