jjannie's greenhouse addition - 2021

[jjannie]

Since our greenhouse has been such a nice convenient way to extend our growing season, we've decided to add an extension to our Harbor Freight 10x12. So this thread will be all about our progress posting. 
 
The background:
We picked up a new-in-box used one earlier this year. It was never even assembled, but was a good price we figured it's meet our needs. However, once we got it home and started unboxing it we quickly learned that leaf cutting wasps had filled most of the corrugated panels with their waxy nests, some even still had live larvae in them, even few spiders had ventured in. It took about 3 weeks of a little work now and then to finally get all the panels cleared out as good as we could get them. Very tedious work, but once all were cleaned out,  we sealed them off using a breathable tape at the bottom ends so bugs cannot work their way up inside once again and sealer tape at the tops to moisture cannot get  down inside. (We did this to the original panels and as well and it has worked wonderfully.)

Took some time to vacation, go fishing and gardening.... then got back to work on the GH. 

Time to lay down the foundation:

We started clearing the space to lay the foundation we would need. We knew we could not fit another full 10x12. But we could do a 10x8 portion of one. We ran into many obstacles - the ground was cement hard having not been watered by us for more than 10 years and it was SUPER rocky with larger rocks some of which were 6 inches or larger. We tried a pick axe, a heavy spud bar and barely made a dent in it. Time for another method - lets try our mini tiller - NO GO it wouldn't keep running - finally took it in for tune up, estimate to repair it was almost more then buying a new one. So we found a new carb kit online that also included some other parts the repair place was going change out for just $12, so we decided we would try doing it ourselves. It only took us 20min and it now runs like champ. Thought we were back in business. We'd water down an area each night, then till and remove the dirt. This took a couple more weeks of off and on work. This area where we are putting this runs uphill, so in order to get it leveled required extra dirt removal to get it leveled. Finally, we got it leveled, so we set the foundation in, but then the rains came making it just too mucky to work in. Hoping this week we can start actually building the addition. here are the progression pics to date for up to now, more posts will be made as we progress. 

[Kent]

It's nice you do so many projects together.

[wiperhunter2]

Looks great Jil, you and Jeff do great work, should be really nice once you are finished. Do you still have anything growing in your GH? I know my outside garden beds got a heavy dose of frost a few days ago. I'll have to post about it on my garden thread.

[jjannie]

It's nice you do so many projects together.

Agreed. We are always thankful we learned how to work together in the USAF, long before we even married. We don't think the same but have learned one another's way of thinking so we make it work pretty well - we both value the different perspectives we each give to things.

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Looks great Jil, you and Jeff do great work, should be really nice once you are finished. Do you still have anything growing in your GH? I know my outside garden beds got a heavy dose of frost a few days ago. I'll have to post about it on my garden thread.

Tomatoes, some bell peppers are still ripening up but the cukes and pole beans are pretty spent. We need to get these leaves up before today's rains wet them once again. This will be 3rd time of doing this as leaves keep falling  - we keep hoping for good wind to remove them so this job can just be over - hahaha.

[wiperhunter2]

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Looks great Jil, you and Jeff do great work, should be really nice once you are finished. Do you still have anything growing in your GH? I know my outside garden beds got a heavy dose of frost a few days ago. I'll have to post about it on my garden thread.

Tomatoes, some bell peppers are still ripening up but the cukes and pole beans are pretty spent. We need to get these leaves up before today's rains wet them once again. This will be 3rd time of doing this as leaves keep falling  - we keep hoping for good wind to remove them so this job can just be over - hahaha.

We are just now getting some leaves from our neighbors trees but I read an article about the benefits of just leaving the leaves on the lawns during the Winter. I guess the nutrients from the leaves leach out during the Winter, then is Spring the leaves can be rakes up. If I run across the article again, I'll send it to you but basically it means you use less fertilizer on your lawn during the Summer.

[jjannie]

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Looks great Jil, you and Jeff do great work, should be really nice once you are finished. Do you still have anything growing in your GH? I know my outside garden beds got a heavy dose of frost a few days ago. I'll have to post about it on my garden thread.

Tomatoes, some bell peppers are still ripening up but the cukes and pole beans are pretty spent. We need to get these leaves up before today's rains wet them once again. This will be 3rd time of doing this as leaves keep falling  - we keep hoping for good wind to remove them so this job can just be over - hahaha.

We are just now getting some leaves from our neighbors trees but I read an article about the benefits of just leaving the leaves on the lawns during the Winter. I guess the nutrients from the leaves leach out during the Winter, then is Spring the leaves can be rakes up. If I run across the article again, I'll send it to you but basically it means you use less fertilizer on your lawn during the Summer.

I agree with leaving some, but we had so many it would be more of weed or grass barrier, killing anything underneath them. Now with this breeze starting up ahead of the front that more and more are still dropping. We use mulching blower vac - so by vacuuming them up its also mulching them and it goes right into a trash can so once filled (its about 10 bags of un-mulched fit in one can). We'll till them along with some soil, utelite and our compost and use this mixture in the beds (once we build them - LOL) in the GH addition as well as in all garden and flower pots.  So far it works pretty well so by the end of next summer amount of dirt left in those pots drops by several inches as the leaves have totally decomposed. Makes for a good soil to use in next year's fall process. At least we got what we needed/wanted  all bagged up while its was dry, ahead of the coming rains - its now saying we could get 1/2 an inch of rain this evening into early tomorrow.  We covered our addition space to try and keep it bit more dry for working in the area W-Su, hopefully by then we will have the GH up giving us some shelter for making the growing beds inside the space. At least that's the plan. 

[jjannie]

Hit another delay…this time it’s rain. We covered up work site to try to keep it dry through this rain period, looks like it sort of worked, so just maybe we’ll get something done this afternoon once the sprinkles end and we drain off the puddles. But now instead of getting about a 4-day break, we are currently supposed to get another round come Sat afternoon (40%) then Sun has (50%) and Monday (60%) seems we just cannot buy a break sometimes. We sure try to get as much done in 3.5 days we do have; with any luck we’ll make decent progress.

[wiperhunter2]

With the dry hot Summer we had, it's nice to finally get some wet weather. Hopefully in the coming days it will warm up and you two will be able complete the outside part of your GH. From what I read Sat morning should be good, so maybe you have a little more time, fingers crossed.

[jjannie]

20 October 2021

Day 1 of actually erecting the GH
This step was a crucial one and it was difficult because its a lot of on the ground work.  Also, since we only are able to use 8 of its 12ft length we had to calculate just where we needed to shorten some parts and drill new holes that would mimic the ends that were cut off. But we accomplished our goal and called it a day. 





 21 October 2021
Day 2
Made good progress today, more adjusting for the shorter length so things lined up. It’s taking shape nicely, got the wall framework up along with side gutters. These 2 pictures give an idea of how the 2 will meet up inside. It’s only 8ft longer but the same 10ft width.

[wiperhunter2]

20 October 2021

Day 1 of actually erecting the GH
This step was a crucial one and it was difficult because its a lot of on the ground work.  Also, since we only are able to use 8 of its 12ft length we had to calculate just where we needed to shorten some parts and drill new holes that would mimic the ends that were cut off. But we accomplished our goal and called it a day. 

 21 October 2021
Day 2
Made good progress today, more adjusting for the shorter length so things lined up. It’s taking shape nicely, got the wall framework up along with side gutters. These 2 pictures give an idea of how the 2 will meet up inside. It’s only 8ft longer but the same 10ft width.

Looks good, you guys have made some great progress.

[jjannie]

Its getting there, just wasn't as simple of a project as we had hoped - Is any big project? 

Day 3
22 October 2021

Well today we got all framing completed before we just called it day. Now its supposed to rain for next 5 days although we may get a little break here and there that we just may want to put in a panel in between showers now and then at least in the walls that won’t need any trimming (both 8ft sides have one section that will require a little trimming in both the wall and roof panels before they can be installed). Once the addition panels are in place, we can open up the space into the original, so we can get started on building (and filling) the raised beds, adding some reinforcement structure to the addition and laying the floor material. Its going to really nice having more sheltered space come spring.

[wiperhunter2]

It is really starting to take shape, now if you guys can get in a few hours before that storm hits later today.......guess it's unlikely to be finished, so I guess that will not matter, maybe next week

[jjannie]

It is really starting to take shape, now if you guys can get in a few hours before that storm hits later today.......guess it's unlikely to be finished, so I guess that will not matter, maybe next week

Yes you can really start getting feel of its size and space now. Its already been lightly raining already this morning so making the area too mucky to work in so maybe we'll get back to working on it by next Friday, giving it over a day to dry out a bit. Then we'll get back at the project. So far, we're pretty happy with  how its turning out. 

The saga continues......

[jjannie]

28 October 2021 - Day 4

Now that the rainy days have passed and we’ve had a good day to dry out the ground some, we finished up installing the panels. Due to all our ‘adjustments’ to its size, this took a full day as even the panels needed to trimmed a bit, but we got it done. We still haven’t cleared out the summer growth so it may be hard to tell in the picture, but it’s a sneak peak of the inside (blue tarp area) – we haven’t built the raised beds yet, and the addition will be accessed by going through original and it will have u-shaped beds with a walk way in the center. So, it’s now a 10x20 greenhouse. Still need to do some reinforcements like we did in did in the original.

[wiperhunter2]

Looks great Jil, amazing you two were able to get all the panels in that quick, when you say you had to trim the panels, if they are make of plastic, do you have a special tool to cut them down?

[jjannie]

Looks great Jil, amazing you two were able to get all the panels in that quick, when you say you had to trim the panels, if they are make of plastic, do you have a special tool to cut them down?

The panels are a polycarbonate material. We cut most using a box knife with a straight edge, but on a few later ones, Jeff did experiment with using his bandsaw and he said it worked as well, we weren't sure it wouldn't just melt it but it didn't. For structural reasons the wall on each side along with and the corresponding roof panels needed the same trimming. It was very time consuming but it all worked out. While Jeff finished up by installing roof opening windows, I once again and for last time, removed leaves from the yard as well as in the gutters on the GH. Funny, we remembered when we used to get leaves from our kids' house to have enough for the garden beds, but that is no longer a problem. With all dust from the ongoing construction next door there was a lot mud that the rains had washed down inside them, but now it too is all cleaned out. There will still be ground work happening, probably come spring of next year but even that should not be heavy dust of the huge dirt mound of them doing their foundation. They are taking so long and they are in no rush (ly) as they with their parents right on the other side, its already been 15 months now.


Once we clean out the original gh and complete the raised beds/walk way in addition, I'll post a final completed project that will be ready for early spring planting. Yesterday, we picked up all materials needed for making the raised beds but we are giving ourselves a little well deserved break for a couple days.

[wiperhunter2]

Wow, it has been 15 months since they started building that house, bet you two will be glad when they are finished. Looking forward to those pics of the finished GH.

[jjannie]

Wow, it has been 15 months since they started building that house, bet you two will be glad when they are finished. Looking forward to those pics of the finished GH.

it feels even longer to us and I'm sure for them too. With rising costs of building materials when you can get them has also helped but they are doing more and more of the work themselves, being over watched by the general contractor/ but also a neighbor. so someday. It sure gave us a lot of weeds this summer that we never had here before, maybe they came in top soil that got dumped off earlier this summer. We'll do more to remove them permanently next year, tried this summer but they kept reappearing it was almost just a waste of time.

[jjannie]

Final update for this project. 

 8-11 November 2021

We built the 1st raised bed and did a fit check. It fit the space perfectly. Now to continue with the 2nd one of this size, then one in center back between them.

13 November 2021

Got the 2 other raised beds built and put in place. Then we ran a cap all around the inside edge using wood from our old strawberry bed that was still good so we just planed it a bit to neaten it up then cut it to size. The next 2 nice days we will concentrate our efforts on filling these up with all our collections (large cans of dirt, some compost, some old straw, and leaves freeing up all the containers for winter storing. Over all, we’re pretty happy with the whole project and we’re happy we got it done before winter really sets in.








Once filled up, they will be ready for early spring planting.

[wiperhunter2]

You guys decided to use corrugated metal for the sides of these new grow boxes, less chance of rotting and it looks great, I like it.