Greenhouse Modifications

While the greenhouse worked beautifully last summer, and its design was always intended to extend the season on either side of summer (which it did at least this past fall, and we think it will do really well later this spring), the light levels inside were not ideal in the middle of summer. So Dave spent a week or so recently adding some windows, some of which had always been in the plans, but the rest we'd not had the materials for originally.


The door was reclaimed, having been stored in our barn, and the opening windows were reclaimed from a house that we got from a used building supplier. This is the north face, where no light (other than ambient) comes in.

This is the west face, with three windows we'd acquired from our cousins when they replaced their windows this summer, plus a shower door (and another one of the reclaimed windows) newly installed. The apex is now enclosed with plexiglas. This face gets a lot of heat and sun in the afternoon.

This is the east face. Again, another shower door, and another window from our cousin. There is some sun in the morning over the trees and around the hazelnut in the summer, but not enough to warrant putting a lot more windows in this end. The holes at the top will be vents.

Dave also built hinged wooden vents at the base of the south wall (you can just make them out in the lower left-hand corner of the above photo), that we'll have open in the summer to let air & pollinators (hopefully!) in.

Now we're reconsidering our options for the planters inside. As you can see from last year, we used oak half-wine barrels:

They worked very well; however, there is a lot of "wasted" space in there. We might build some raised beds instead. Last year, there just wasn't time, budget, or energy; this year, we'll see!