Greenhouse Extension

For 3 weeks now we have desperately needed a more room in our greenhouse. The original 25x25ft of growing space was excellent to start the season off through the cool nights, however, we have hundreds of tomatoes outgrowing their 4" pots and even more pepper plants needing potting up. So a couple weeks later that we would have liked it was time to build an additional 30ftx30ft of growing space. To make this happen on a small budget we decided to build the greenhouse from scratch.

Earlier this week was spent preparing all the metal. The hoops of the house are comprised of 2 - 20ft lengths of pipe welded together, which are bent and drilled. To bend the hoops we set up a jig on one of our flat deck trailers. The jig is made of 2x4's screwed into the deck creating an arc that will give the metal an arc as we pull around the 2x4's.

Next we stood all the hoops upright and screwed them together, starting at the end of our existing greenhouse. Plans are to cut the wall out between the two sections when we start potting up all the plants this week, so you can walk right through both structures. The new sections is 5 ft taller than the previous which will allow more height for the tomatoes vines in the summer.

To attache the plastic to the metal hoops we use wiggle wire & wiggle wire strips.. It is a pretty cool system that will secures the plastic firmly to the metal, yet allows us to take the plastic off with ease at a later date if needed.

All in all creating the structure was quite easy. It took half a day to prepare the metal, half a day to bolt everything together. Next all we needed was a calm day to put up the plastic. If you can picture the plastic, it is a 40ftx60ft kite under the right conditions. Because of this there is generally one rule and only one rule to putting up greenhouse plastic. Never Put Up Greenhouse Plastic In The Wind. As it happened the day we wanted to put up the plastic was a bit breezy, much stronger wind than I would have liked. But with so many plants needing more room we gathered a good crew and took our chances. We were able to pull the plastic over in 15 minutes and get it secured before the wind blew it into the trees.

So the home made extension seems to be a success. The only issue now will be heating the new structure. Our wood stove was only just able to keep the smaller space warm on some of our cool spring nights. The goal is to heat the greenhouse without natural gas which will pose some challenges. Plans are to implement a number of passive solar techniques to capture heat during the day to be released throughout the night. Once we get everything set up I will take some more pics.

Potatoes, Plants & Chickens

Work is really starting to pick up on the farm now. There is still tones of snow on the ground, which means we are busy in the sheds packing seed potatoes, in the greenhouse starting thousands of seedlings and in the chicken coop with our first batch of chicks.

I know I have talked about our potatoes before, they happen to be one of my favorite vegetables. Also we grow quite a few, over 30 varieties and this year nearly 30 acres. We package our potatoes in small to large bags and ship them across the country to home gardeners, market gardeners and garden centres. You can find our catalogue online at seedpotatoes.ca

This is our second year on the farm with a greenhouse and the second year growing tones of vegetables. Right now it is packed full of tomatoes, peppers, onions, herbs & a few flowers. Last week we brought in a bunch of metal for an expansion. Due to the increased interest in our CSA Community Shared Agriculture vegetable delivery program we need to double the growing room. Unfortunately we ran out of room last week so the expansion is needed in a bad way.

The newest project on the farm this year is our Chickens. I have been raising a dozen laying hens for the past couple years to lay eggs for my family and a few friends. But this year we have decided to take it to the next level and bring on a total of 299 laying hens so that we can sell eggs through our CSA Shares on farm and at farmers markets.

Just this past week we received our first 35 chicks and so far they are doing fantastic. Before the summer is over we will have to build a new chicken coop to house them throughout the cold winter months. Plans are to build a coop out of straw bales. I will post pictures when we start building and will also be looking for help in the process if anyone is interested.

You can find out more about our CSA Vegetable Delivery Program on our website at eaglecreekfarms.ca