Greenhouse!

Isn't it cute?! We built it just barely big enough for this season to help the cash flow crisis--It's skinned with 1 year film and the idea is to double its length next winter, then build a second one the following year.

     Our original plan for a "greenhouse" this year was to make a temporary, three-season high tunnel out of PVC... then stick a forced-air salamander heater in it and use it like a greenhouse.  A high tunnel, for those who don't know, is basically an unheated greenhouse "top" over a part of the field where you're growing a crop instead of transplants.  We had this concept planned and budgeted nicely.  Then several people got us scared that we were putting all of our eggs in a rickety basket with that idea, so we decided to upgrade.  Neither of us remember the moment that we decided to build this crazy thing, but we somehow upgraded from a pvc tunnel with haybales for end walls to a 1 5/8" galvanized steel gothic structure.  Our friend Ron, at Huguenot Street Farm, helped us get our hands on a bunch of fence post steel, which we bent into form with a jig borrowed from our new neighbor Ted, at Windflower farm.  We had two unwitting helpers in the form of Lauren and Truman, friends visiting for 2 days from out of town.  Truman took back the pickup truck we'd been borrowing, but not before he helped us rehang a barn door, fix a second one, and put up our greenhouse bows.

Cara, Lauren, and Truman installing the first of our home-bent greenhouse bows.

It somehow took us a solid week to round up all the materials, bend the hoops, put up the structure, and get it skinned, but we did it!  It's actually not *quite* done--the ventilation isn't installed (or quite figured out), but we have a couple weeks on that still.  At least we can finally get a jump on seeding.  Hopefully we can get a little surplus seedlings from some friends to help overcome our late start and have a dynamite year anyway!

Somewhere in the fuzzy 'halfway' zone. For about 4 days I sincerely was confident that we'd be seeding flats by the end of the following day. In fact, right now I am still confident that we'll be seeding flats by the end of tomorrow.