Greenhouse construction

It has been a few days since I have made a post to this blog. Nice weather and some management responsibilities has occupied a large portion of my time.

The middle of this past week the weather turned cold and greenhouse work began again.

Assistant Mike Walerius and Russell Klevorn attaching the poly liner to the structure. The 6 mil poly is attached to the framing by what is called wiggle wire.

The wiggle wire consists of a metal channel and the curved wire that you see inside the channel.

The poly is held in place by the wire. Our greenhouse will have two layers of poly. The poly will be inflated by a small fan that creates an air bubble between the two layers. The air bubble helps to reduce heat loss at night which reduces heating costs and keeps our plants healthy.

Mike and Russell are attaching the liner and Assistant Skip Fierro(driving elevated Daihatsu) is watching their efforts.

Lady is supervising rather calmly today. She is well impressed by the staff's efforts.

Skip, Mike and Russell making the benches where our plant flats will sit. The 2 x 4's are covered with wire which is pictured below. The wire will allow the plants to drain freely. Freely available oxygen, readily available sunlight, and water equal great root growth. That sounds like what I talk about when it comes to our greens. Same concept goes for all healthy plants.

Mike is framing door and fan end of the house. The completed benches are in the background.

The door leading into the greenhouse. The two squares at the top corners of the door will hold Two 20" variable speed fans to help pull air through the greenhouse.

We have 3-36" ventilators which will open automatically based on the temperature in the greenhouse. A 12" ventilator in the very peak of the house is there to provide very limited air flow during the late winter when small decreases in temperature are needed. If the large ventilators came open, there would be too much cold air flow going over our plants. Our fans will operate at two speeds. During less temperate days, a single fan will be set at a low speed. On warmer days once the temperature reaches the next set level, the 3 large ventilators will open allowing additional air supply to enter the house. As the house continues to increase in temperature, the thermostats will sense this and place the fans in high speed. As the temperature begins to modify, the process will work in reverse so the temperature does not get too cold. The two thermostats will work independantly of one another. We would like to keep the greenhouse in the mid-70 range as much as possible to help our plants keep a steady growth pattern.

New babies have arrived at Glen Echo. Well, new baby plants. The flat of plugs on the left are Super Elfin Impatiens. There are 510 plants which we will be growing to their maturity. The flat of impatiens basic cost is $ 21.00, excluding shipping, pots and soil. Wholesale mature plants come in trays of 36 at $ 10-11 a flat.

The plant to the left is an ornamental pepper which is in a tray of 128 plugs. It is probably 3 times the size of the impatien. $ 37.00 for this flat, .29 cents a piece. These plants are grown usually in 3-4" pots by wholesales companies who ask $ 2.20-2.30 a plant.

I think our greenhouse will be a great asset for our operation. Once it is up and running and fully operational, I will alert you in an email blast and you will be more than welcome to come down and visit our growing house.