Yay! Congratulations!

Okay! Gotta find something similar! GREAT!!

I won't say it was easy but using reclaimed materials it is great.

Fantastic! All by your self? I'm impressed!

Congratulations! Hot doggies. You can have your bed .... or start more seedlings? Don't do that. Keep yer bed.

After seeing this, Kim, I had to immediately go online to study hoop houses and hoop tunnels and greenhouses. Poor Garry. He had no idea what he was getting himself into. Baby steps. . . the trick is, to get HIM excited about it all, so that he thinks all this stuff is his idea. Actually, he did bring up the idea of the hoop tunnels, which he knew nothing about, but came up with the idea 2-3 months ago, making a shelter for the raised beds with PVC (he already had come up with idea, and implemented, his PVC soaker system).

So as he gets more excited about the veggies (and yes, Dawn, it is a tricky thing in itself. When he came in and told me he'd planted the potatoes, I asked him where--he told me, and I was thinking I would have planted them in a different bed, but didn't say a word, I was a little bemused. Can't put my finger on the emotion. I quickly realized I was being a little proprietary. . . and had to laugh at me. I NEED for him to be a vested partner in this!), I believe he'll have many more really good ideas.

The other day when I was double mulching stacks and stacks of leaves, I was wearing out--meanwhile, he was busy raking and leaf-blowing out all the leaves from around the iris beds and my next-to-deck beds, and I was wanting to get his attention to tell him to STOP!! First, because it was going to freeze tonight and tomorrow, and second, because I was getting worn out. But I couldn't get his attention, and I was 100 feet away mowing leaves. So I just was thinking, "Man, I'm not gonna live through this, now I have to go double mulch all THOSE stacks of leaves, and get em back around emerging plants). So I finished my area, went over to the new stacks, and he said, "Nancy, you look beat. Just leave those piles." I said, no might as well get em done, as it might be 3-4 days before I could get back to them. . . and so did and it all turned out beautifully, except that I could barely lift my arms for rest of the day.

It's going to be a little tough for me to share this gardening stuff in a way, as I've only ever done it myself (having been single for 30 years previously), but mostly I am thrilled to death that he's getting excited about it. We are growing 3 little avocado seeds--after HE discovered one growing in one of the raised beds last fall. He pulled it, but then later told me about it. I was so impressed he knew what it was. And so he wondered if we could grow them. . . so we did. We have 3 of them, and they're his babies. That's when he decided he might need to build a greenhouse so the avocado trees could grow. Hahaha! Good humor! I will encourage that thought, needless to say. And wait til I tell him he could grow a lemon tree in his greenhouse! I think this is going good.

Nancy if you Google cattle panel greenhouse the are lots of plans even videos. Since I was using reclaimed material mine does not match anyones lol.

My ends will look more like this when I am finished.

Kim

Kim, It looks great and I'm proud of you for getting it done in such cold weather.

I hope the puppy doesn't think you just built it a nice doggie playhouse/fort/dog spa.

Your little man is going to love it too.

Good luck with it and keep us posted on how well it keeps those plants warm at night.

Nancy, I agree. It will be hard to get used to gardening with a partner after doing it alone for so long. Maybe as he gets more used to working with you, he'll discuss things like where to plant the potatoes in advance instead of just going out and doing it. (grin) Having the help will be nice though.

A greenhouse, even a simple hoophouse, is enormously helpful. I could bring in my citrus trees in winter, but usually don't. I did bring them in for one or two nights in January because I don't heat the greenhouse. I could heat it, I just choose not to. I mostly use my greenhouse to overwinter plants that are only marginally cold hardy in zone 7 and as a place to grow and hold transplants once they're too large for the indoor light shelves but the weather is too cold for them to go into the ground. That's generally for most of March, and sometimes parts of April.

By May 1st, my greenhouse, even with both doors and all 4 vents open and a fan running (and it is covered in Aluminet 50% shade cloth) is getting awfully hot during the day and the plants need to either go into the ground or at least be moved out of the greenhouse to avoid the excessive heat. If I leave them in there after May 1st, they start to suffer too much from the heat and then they are stressed and spider mites attack them. Really, anything I don't have in the ground by May 1st or, if we're talking about large containerized plants like citrus--already moved out to their summer location--then the plants probably are excess and I don't have any place for them anyway.

Some years I have kept tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse all winter, or at least lettuce, but the temperature swings on hot sunny days are so extreme that the temperatures that are right for the tomatoes/peppers aren't right for the lettuce, so I don't use it in winter as much as I thought I would. It is simple---I need two greenhouses in winter---one for hot season plants and another for cool season plants.

Dawn

This looks wonderful! My son-in-law has wanted me to have a greenhouse for quite a while. He could, and would, do this for me. I'll be showing him your pictures. I priced cattle panels a while back, but didn't notice whether they come in different sizes. I hadn't expected to be able to stand up under one. I'm 5' 1". I had only planned to bend them over my raised beds.

Nowyouseedum, the cattle panels we buy at Atwoods are approximately 4' x 16'. They sell shorter ones but surprisingly, they aren't as cost effective. (No, I don't remember prices). 16' makes a tall archway.

Kim, what kind of plastic did you use?

Ok the low was 22 here and in the greenhouse was 33. I did not get the greenhouse closed up and heater on until after 8:00 so it was already below 50 to start. If I keep it closed from late afternoon with the heater I think it can do better. Even with a dog size gap :/ it is 87 in there now. And it's only 40 outside!

That's great. What you'll have to watch is the cloudy, cool days because those are the days where there often is not enough heat to raise the temperatures inside much at all during the day. However, since you're going to run a heater in there, that won't be much of a problem.

Awesome!!! Don't you love it though when something you've put so much hard work into brings you such joy?!?! :)

I really would like to build a shade garden with vining veggies going over top. I can't get cattle panels since I don't have a truck. Although, honestly renting a truck from Home Depot for about $20 for an hour would be worth it. Hmmmmmmm........

I would totally rent a truck if I had no other option. I'm sorry you don't know anyone nearby with a truck that can help out, Melissa. If I were nearby ..... we'd get 'er done for ya.

Awwww, that's so sweet.....*sniff sniff*

I found an 8' x 4' cattle panel at Tractor Supply for $12.99. That would be perfect for what I am wanting in one part of my beds. I think I want to do a 4' x 8-10' bed for tomatoes since I really don't have enough room for as much as my mind dreams about. But that is enough for us. I would like to put a panel in the center so I can plant on both sides. You all know what I mean, I'm sure. I'd like to have a second one of the same thing for cucumbers on one side and spaghetti squash on the other, but make these only 3' wide. In this section of my yard I want to NOT have to mow. What do you all use in between your beds? Straw maybe? But I don't want the grass to continue to grow up through my paths. Maybe I need to put down some cardboard then some type of mulch on top?

Melissa, that's what I did, cardboard and mulch.

All my pathways are covered with a high-quality, heavy-duty weedblock fabric pinned down to the soil with U-shaped landscape fabric staples. Then, I put mulch on top of the fabric. Usually I start out with a new layer of chopped/shredded leaves in January/February. I put it down on the fabric after I've scooped up last year's mulch, which now is compost, into the beds adjacent to the path. Every time we mow, we catch the grass clippings in the mower's grass catcher and add new layers of mulch to each pathway. Not every pathway gets mulch each time we mow because of the size of the garden, but all pathways get mulch perpetually added throughout the growing season--so roughly from March through November in terms of when we are mowing the lawn areas.

Even with a barrier layer, whether it is cardboard, plastic or landscape fabric, you still have to immediately pull weeds that sprout in the mulch. Otherwise, they can send down roots through your barrier layer, and then you'll have a real mess. However, it is a cinch to keep paths weed-free as long as you have some sort of barrier beneath the mulch.

I like to use cardboard in other places....along the fence line, right on top of some of the raised beds, etc. because it attract earthworms. The earthworms will devour the cardboard once it is soft enough from moisture for them to do so. The problem with cardboard, depending on its thickness and how much moisture you do or don't have, is that in wet years even a pretty thick layer can decompose in just a couple of months. In a dry year with little rainfall/irrigation, the cardboard can last the whole growing season. For growing beds, that is not necessarily a problem if it breaks down quickly because I weed them constantly anyway to keep anything from getting started growing in them, and add mulch quite often. For pathways, I like a barrier that won't decompose as quickly as cardboard does because I have no intention of weeding pathways more than I absolutely must in summer. In a large garden, it is hard enough to keep all the planted areas weeded without having to worry about weeding pathways too.

My favorite thing about mulched pathways is that at the end of the growing season, the mulch is almost completely broken down into compost. I crouch on my kneeling pad and scoop the compost directly from the pathway to the adjacent bed with my compost scoop. This compost required no building of piles, no careful mixing of greens and browns, no turning, no watering, no monitoring to be sure it gets hot enough. I just pile up the mulch on the paths, ignore it until it is compost, and scoop it up. This also means I'm not hauling wheelbarrow loads of compost from some compost pile somewhere to bring it into the garden---is is practically composting in place, and has eliminated most of the work involved in composting while keeping the paths weed-free.

We priced the 10ft (8ft) T-posts at Lowes, yesterday, as well as some of the cattle panels. I believe we're going to go with eight of these with a horizontal 16 ft x 4 ft cattle panel atop, a 16x4 tomato bed. I want to string (wire) the tomatoes beneath and the structure will be strong enough to hold up to weather. We can run guy wires at any point to reinforce strength. I want to be able to dismantle it for rotation needs.

Shade cloth can be used over the top when needed or even greenouse cover can be used over the entire thing in early spring The following year we'll purchase cattle panels and the same T posts for a bean bed.

I love dreaming about it all.

bon

Love. Panels hard to work with? That's what I need but smaller. Cow panles pig panels . high here$$$$. . just want cinder blocks and panel. Plastic. Pig is made my antique window house. His house.

They are not hard to work with. I laid 3 of them flat on the ground and attached to my boards and then flipped it with 1 person.

It is doing amazingly well. I am going to extend it another 3 panels.

What daytime temp is best for growing ?

How are you ventilating?

Kim, The best daytime temperature for growing depends on what you're growing, particularly cool season vs. warm season. The very warm temperatures that some warm season plants like peppers and eggplants would love could be hot enough to push cool-season crops like lettuce into bolting. So, you need to choose your temperature for daytime growing right now to be whatever is best for your cool-season crops. Then, you have to figure out how to keep the greenhouse cool enough on sunny days. I like to grow plants on at around 60-65 degrees, but it is hard to keep the greenhouse that cool, even on sunny winter days, without a fan running.

With both doors and all 4 vents closed, my greenhouse can hit the 80s within an hour (or even less) of sunrise, even if we were near freezing around sunrise. By 10 a.m., if I haven't opened all the doors and vents, it can hit 145 degrees. It is stunning how quickly it heats up (that fabled greenhouse effect, you know), and that is with 50% shade cloth covering it. With all doors and vents open, I can keep the greenhouse temperature maybe only 10 degrees warmer than the outside air as long as we have any sort of breeze at all Or, I can run a large fan (one of those big industrial fans on wheels) with the air blowing right through the center (walkway) of the greenhouse and keep the inside temperature about the same as the outdoor temperature.

You'll have to experiment and track your temperatures to see what sort of highs and lows your greenhouse achieves with no assistance from you, and then see what sort of ventilation and shading you can do to keep it from overheating during the day or what sort of heating/thermal mass you need at night to keep it from getting to cold.

My first year, I kept a Min-Max thermometer in the greenhouse and another one posted at 5' above ground in the shade outside the greenhouse, and compared the temperatures constantly to see what was going on. I'm glad I did it, because I quickly learned the greenhouse heated up a lot more during the daytime than I had expected.

When I go outside in the morning, even before I open the coops and let the poultry out to free-range, I generally open the greenhouse door first, as long as we are at/above 32 degrees. It is an important habit to form because forgetting to get that ventilation going early in the day can mean overheated plants.

Dawn

That's what I have tracked just talking to my friend everyday while I was gone. Several days it went over 100 before they got here to open up. So I had my son come at 730 to open even tho it was still cool. The brassica look bad. I hope they make it. We will see. Tomatoes look awesome except for those from seed I bought from the same place. I lost several of them and the remaining are small. I am going to get the ends of greenhouse done this week so I can open vent/doors on both ends.

Kim, I did learn pretty quickly that timing was of the essence when it comes to getting those greenhouse doors open in the mornings. Same thing in the afternoon---if a cold night is expected, I learned I need to close the doors and vents around 3 pm to allow heat to build up while the sun is still fairly high in the sky.

Good luck with getting the ends done. I hope the wind isn't going to blow had enough to interfere in getting the job done.

Dawn

I had a market meeting in Lubbock so did not get anything done at home. Checked the thermometer opened and closed. I did rehang my shade cloth my "helper" thought it was unnecessary. Well the hi temp was 73 instead of 100. What a difference. The meeting was awesome and I really feel the need to get busier now. I am really looking forward to this year.

This is what the greenhouse is about

I completely emptied it out put down cardboard and black plastic last night. When Ryder got here yesterday morning he said OH wow look at that is awesome for my babies. Lol. He took great care in planting beans and rechecked several times take sure they had drank all their water.

I thought you had a greenhouse, Kim, but now I am pretty sure that Ryder thinks it is his greenhouse. lol. He's going to be in that greenhouse as much as you, and that's not a bad thing.

What a cutie, has his own chair and everything!

Oh yes it it his!!! And he makes sure everyone know it's his and he is in charge.

That is awesome, Kim--what a great great experience you're providing him.. He's SO cute! And you are making good use of the greenhouse, right!?

The best use, seedlings and fun. Also a great place to get out if the wind and work.

He's getting so tall! Even though he is sitting, I can see how much longer his legs and torso look. He isn't going to be your little man much longer, he's going to be your big little man.

And heavy, Dawn. I can hardly lift him. When hes sleeping and I dont want to wake him I carry him and I barely made it today. I remember when my kids got to that point it almost made me cry they were getting too big.

I didn't even think about him getting heavier, Kim, but of course that would come with all his new growth. They do grow up too fast. (sigh) He's going to be such a great garden helper this year. He knows so much already and now he gets to help you with the plants in "his" greenhouse. It just doesn't get any better than that. Y'all will have so much fun growing and harvesting together this year.

What a cute garden helper!

Thank you all for your sweet words. I enjoy him so much and appreciate and treasure every second with him. He took great pleasure in planting pinto beans. I had 2 5 gallon buckets the school was throwing away. I was going to check for viability but he took care of that and planted them in pots, in the garden, in 6 packs. I have beans every where.