May 18th, 2014

This May long weekend, while many other families were heading out camping my dad and I built a greenhouse.  I've never had the opportunity before to greenhouse grow, so I am super excited to get the chance.  A greenhouse will not only be able to increase our ability to grow vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers, but will allow us to consider bringing in more tender fruits such as apricots, lemons and limes.  Not to mention the possibilities of year round food production.

The site.  Against the fence and dead centre is the remains of a rose bush that I cut right back at the beginning of the spring.  This will need to come out.  We also considered laying down a base of gravel, but decided against that and chose to go with bare ground instead.

The site itself will sit on the East side of our garden and towards the Northeast corner of the yard.

The profile of the site just before breaking ground.  Things will look quite different when we're done.

Our building site with the rose bush pulled up and the pre-existing sod turned over.

The same from a higher vantage point. 

The base of the greenhouse laid out, measured and levelled.

The framework starting to go into place.  The corners and connecting supports.

The ribs and walls put in place.  We had some trouble with keeping the back of the structure intact, as a decent wind would push it out it's tracks. 

A side view of the side and back walls.  This is where we left off at the end of the first work day.  About 7 hours between breaking ground, sorting the pieces and building the structure to this point.

Day 2.  The beginnings of the roof structure coming together.  We had a heck of a time getting the triangle pieces into place without them falling apart.  Took some time, and a lot of swearing on my part, but we got it.

Starting to look like a greenhouse.

The roof ribs and panels go into place.  The hole in the roof is where the ventilation window will go.

Doors and two vent windows attached.  Reinforcement bars along the sides of the interior of the structure, plus reinforcements installed along the spine of the roof and at the corners.  I also spread a layer of wood chips throughout the interior to give the floor a bit of a finish.

And there it is, our new greenhouse.  Drastically changing the landscape of our yard, but greatly increasing our ability to grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables.  Two days and 13 hours later.  Huge thanks go to my dad for partnering with me on this project.  We were both completely wiped when it was all done, but I definitely think it was worth it.