We Are Building a Low Side-wall Polytunnel (Greenhouse)

[DRAGON64]

After much disappointment with vegetables we find in our local grocery stores (not supply chain related), my wife and I decided to get a greenhouse. We started with a video from a youtube channel called Deep South Homestead, and our journey took off! The process of researching, finding, ordering and picking up our greenhouse (some assembly required), has been quite a rewarding adventure. We ordered from Growers Solution out of Cookeville, TN. Growers Solution is a only 2.5 hours drive from us, so we visited them for a tour of their facility (and ordered the same day). To save on the $500 shipping charge, we rented a trailer and took another day to go and pick our "kit" up 7-days after our order was placed.

Do any of you Rocketeers utilize the benefits of owning and working a greenhouse?

The kit we ordered is a low sidewall, 3.5 feet high, that measures 16W by 24L. Our kit is a "hoop" style greenhouse that is covered in a 6mil poly plastic. So far we have the location selected, and the corners staked, but have not started setting any posts yet. Once weather permits, we are going to be hands on! The kits, like HP rocket kits, are not complete, and will require some additional components to complete, like doors, lumber, fans, vents etc. What our kit did come with is; the galvanized tubing for all side-walls, hoop roof, and end walls, which included tek screws for construction. There is weed barrier cloth, poly cover for roof, and ends, as well as strapping for wind management. We special ordered with roll up sides (for ventilation), and added a 40% shade cloth for the long hot summers.

Cost? Lets just say, that long term it is cheaper than some L3 projects that I have witnessed fly. We will document this build, much like rocket builds, so I will add images as we progress.

 

[mo2872]

My boys and I built this cold frame last year for Mother's Day for my wife. Picture is before I managed to source some twin-wall polycarbonate(ironically enough, I got the poly at Home Depot in Wichita while in Argonia for AirFest!). I think it would be neat to have a full blown greenhouse, but for now, this serves.

Edited to add a completed photo.....we made drain channels in the concrete to let water run out.....you can sort of see them under the doors.

 

[DRAGON64]

Nice start, would definitely be good for herbs and spices etc. My mother bought a little green-poly GH that was framed from PVC. How that flimsy thing is still standing boggles the mind, but she quickly out grew the little GH, and went with a 10X8 foot GH made from aluminum and polycarbonate.

 

[dhbarr]

We do caterpillar-style low tunnels out of rebar, conduit, poly, cordage, t-posts, and ratchet straps. The wind is your enemy.

 

[DRAGON64]

Lumber was not cheap, but it is not getting any cheaper anytime soon... but at one of our local (s)Lowes the wood looked to good to pass on, We also picked up the doors, and some concrete/play sand for leveling some spots on the plot:

 

[DRAGON64]

"Cart before the horse" syndrome Here is the low side-wall kit the day we picked it up from Grower Solutions:

 

[DRAGON64]

The kit instructions are pretty self explanatory, and of course we have to customize according to our needs. Everything begins after site selection, and determining the pole position of the first corner... everything from there will fall into place:

 

[DRAGON64]

After setting the 4 corners, we started applying "play sand" to start leveling the end wall. It took seven 50 lb sacks of sand to go from zero to 2"tall in 16ft of the end wall. Our plan to to level the end walls, but the 24' sidewalls flow with the slope of the land. We will get much more sand to finish "feathering out the leveling we started, and to fill in small "ankle-twister" low spots in the interior of the greenhouse. Once done we can add the weed barrier cloth.



Corner posts as laid out for a 16X24

 

[DRAGON64]

My wife and I have had separate hobbies for 30+ years, not since our early years have we had a home hobby that we can both share in together... Here my wife is marking a pole before it gets pounded 24" into the ground:

 

[DRAGON64]

After spreading seven bags of sand, we realized we were not a good judge of what it would take to fill in our low spots. These low spots can be very deceiving, and we now know they can take a lot of sand to fill in... That being said, I went to (s)Lowes this past Saturday and picked up 17 more bags... love that number!



My son helped me locate the sand, in hopes that I did not need to move it much more than I actually have to...



With the sun getting lower this time of year, the shadows went long, and the temp dropped, but I managed to spread 15 of the 17 bags before calling it quits for the day.



My wife and I will lay down the weed barrier cloth next!

 

[DRAGON64]

This is one of five raised bed assemblies that we plan to use in the greenhouse; it measures 2' wide by 6' long and 1' deep. A real pain to put together... not hard, just time consuming. We put one together to test the greenhouse location, to try and identify low spots. Once satisfied, we moved on to the next phase of the build.

 

[DRAGON64]

The day after we leveled the greenhouse floor, my wife and I took advantage of a beautiful Sunday to install the weed barrier cloth. We used a roll of 3' wide for the interior, and a 4' wide roll to cover the outer perimeter.



Here my wife is "stappling down the interior floor with 6" long galvanized stapples.



And stappling the long sides of the perimeter. Note, a small torch is used to burn holes in the cloth to fit over the poles.





Here is the plot I laid out in a CAD program to make sure we best utilized the weed barrier cloth to our advantage. The cross hatched areas are where we overlapped the cloth.



We got done just in time, as the farmer who works the land began harvesting the soy beans from the field.

 

[Hobie1dog]

What a great launching site to have in your back yard, does he let you use it?

 

[DRAGON64]

The field is great for small A, B & C flights, that is about it. I mainly used the field as a shooting range up to 200 yards.

 

[Dipstick]

This is one of five raised bed assemblies that we plan to use in the greenhouse; it measures 2' wide by 6' long and 1' deep. A real pain to put together... not hard, just time consuming. We put one together to test the greenhouse location, to try and identify low spots. Once satisfied, we moved on to the next phase of the build.

View attachment 490300

This is a good idea. I built a greenhouse this spring and used it this summer. Had some good experiences and results, but I had plants in pots, and they were hard to keep moist. My plan was to use something like you have here and simulate garden soil a little better.

 

[DRAGON64]

This is a good idea. I built a greenhouse this spring and used it this summer. Had some good experiences and results, but I had plants in pots, and they were hard to keep moist. My plan was to use something like you have here and simulate garden soil a little better.

We have also been wondering about watering, as our public water works provides basically non-potable water, which is heavy on fluoride and other nasty chemicals. We are researching rain water harvesting in order to water our own garden, as I cannot water from our public works. Thanks for sharing!

 

[DRAGON64]

This past Saturday, my wife and I started to install the last 10 sidewall poles. Each of the poles are installed 24" into the ground:



We thought setting up our guide string would take the longest part of the task, but it was really pretty easy. We installed the top string to keep all the poles even, and the bottom string was to keep help start the poles level and uniform.



Ultimate pole leveling was achieved with this inexpensive little pole-leveling tool.



My upper arm and shoulder were tired, but we got the poles all installed.



We also temporarily covered the pipe openings with duct tape in case it rained before we could continue. We did not want anymore moisture in the poles than absolutely needed.

 

[Dipstick]

We have also been wondering about watering, as our public water works provides basically non-potable water, which is heavy on fluoride and other nasty chemicals. We are researching rain water harvesting in order to water our own garden, as I cannot water from our public works. Thanks for sharing!

https://www.bluebarrelsystems.com/blog/rain-barrel-overflow-solutions/
I also experimented with rain barrels this year. My local lowes had downspout diverters that fill the barrel, then if it backs up, it just goes down the downspout as usual. Go with more barrels then less, they fill fast!

 

[DRAGON64]

I like the blue barrel system, my wife and I watched a couple videos on the subject. Our current disadvantage, is we are also having to price a gutter system for the house, as we do not currently have one. We have a number of local Tractor Supply locations that offer new/unused barrels or tanks/totes that we could use for a potential rain harvesting project.

 

[DRAGON64]

This past Sunday we were expecting rain, but when we found out that the rain was to hold off till late afternoon, my wife and I decided to make some real progress on the greenhouse build, and that was to get the roof structure built. We pulled out the "hoop" assemblies, quickly assembled them, and got busy...









We used a couple ladders to get the purlin (spine) installed in the build, and now we are beginning to see the fruits of our labor.





Since we were still expecting rain later on, we took silver Duct Tape and sealed off any openings in the roof to wall joints, so that we did not accumulate any moisture inside.



With the holidays upon us, we are expecting a bit of a slow down in the build. My wife and I just don't move well in the cold. However, we may have a window of opportunity to get the end walls built this coming Wednesday, which will lead us into Thanksgiving with another feeling of accomplishment. Thanks all for following along!

 

[DRAGON64]

On the day after Christmas, my wife and I took advantage of the geoengineered weather (75 degrees on Dec 26, 2021) to get a little more work done on our greenhouse project; we installed the sidewall lumber... doesn't look like much, but we enjoyed all three and a half hours of it. Much of which was prep and tool set up etc.

 

[hball55]

No greenhouse, but I do have a small patch, about ten plants, where I grow habanero peppers.

 

[DRAGON64]

75 degrees Saturday night (we ran the AC ), 24 hours later...3-4" of show and 29 degrees...

 

[DRAGON64]

Update:

So water was still able to get into the wall pipes, and when it froze it pushed the corners out of the ground 2" We drilled holes in all of the wall pipes right at the ground level and drained all the water out. Hope fully this will be a permanent fix. With all of the rain we have had, the water table is appaerntly really high with saturated top soil. Anyways, we dismantled a couple roof hoops and sidewall pies, and pounded them back into place. No pics, as were worked diligently to rectify the issue, seeing as we have four absolutely gorgeus days infron of us to finish this projecty off se we can get to planting and growing...

 

[DRAGON64]

Since the debacle above, we made significant progress in the last two days; side walls assembled, end walls assembled, caulking done, waiting on paint, hopefully later today...

 

[DRAGON64]

Day three of gorgeous weather, and as a family, we made significante progress...

Here my son is drilling out some "wiggle-wire track" for todays effort. Also, we worked till 5:30PM CST to get most of the outsdie painetd so we can hopefully get the covering installed tomorrow...



This is the 1/8" hardware cloth (wire mesh)that we will install on the lower sides, that will keep critters out, while we ventilate the greenhouse during the hot months...



This mainly what we work on today; wiggle-wire track. The squiggly wires on the ground is the wiggle wire that will be inserted into the pictured track to hold the poly cover down on the green house...



Days end progress...

 

[DRAGON64]

Friday was a huge day for us, as we started getting the .006 poly film on the end walls and the roof. My wife and son did all the lower work, and my son did all of the upper hoop attaching as well.



For the rook, we needed the hands and fresh eyes of my daughter, We got it on, but it was quite a chore. It seems that Grower Solutions gave us WAAY more poly film than we needed...



Once the poly was secured into the wiggle wire tracks, we closed Friday down...

 

[DRAGON64]

Saturday my wife and I began the process of trimming the excess poly away, so we could start the finishing procdures getting closer to a working greenhouse. This included building the roll up sides... we were so whipped by the end of Saturday, we did not get any pics.

Today however, we got up early, and made the cut for one of the doors and got it installed. We sgtill have another door to install on the other end, but for now we have a functioning greenhouse waiting for raised beds, pots, soil and plants!



You see also the roff hold down that will help to keep the roof from 'flapping' too much when the winds get up. Here the roll up sides are closed, as we are expecting storm tonight into tomorrow.

We have worked our jobs half day, and spent the rest of the days since Tuesday, taking advantage of the awesome weather, to get this project as close as possible to functioning... I am Freak'n WHIPPED! My wife too, but more than that, we are proud of this project... I'm not allowed to ask for chickens yet...

 

[Grog6]

That looks really good!
I think I need to plant some habanero or ghost peppers; that'll teach the damned deer to leave my **** alone, lol.
Every time I've planted a garden the last decade, the deer have eaten it all.
I came home one day in the 00's, and my elderly mom was out there beating a deer with a broom, lol. Deer was eating around her, lol.
I have doubts a greenhouse will help. Peppers might, tho.

 

[dhbarr]

That looks really good!
I think I need to plant some habanero or ghost peppers; that'll teach the damned deer to leave my **** alone, lol.
Every time I've planted a garden the last decade, the deer have eaten it all.
I came home one day in the 00's, and my elderly mom was out there beating a deer with a broom, lol. Deer was eating around her, lol.
I have doubts a greenhouse will help. Peppers might, tho.

We ended up with a solar powered 3d electric fence. It really gets the job done.