Our New Hot-House – A Two Year Project – A Three Part Story

Part 1 – Construction of a large indoor work space for seedlings and early transplants.

With learning how to prepare for the growing season, a number of projects have been implemented on our farm. One of those projects was to build a small “hot-house”; a lean-to styled building that we built on the South-west end of our equipment shed in 2012. It was 20 feet wide by 7 feet high and 7 feet deep with a fixed 20 foot long bench along the windows. The Southwest facing wall had 20 feet of window glass about 3 feet high and a polycarbonate roof that allowed lots of light into the space. This is where we first tried to grow peppers and tomatoes. Since it was a small space, we created a removable shelving system above the bench with some steel tubing, allowing for a second row of planting trays to be placed above the ones on the bench. Inevitably, it was too crowded and with the low ceiling and it tended to be quite hot inside so we had to be careful not to fry the young plants on a sunny day. Of course, on a cold and cloudy day, we needed to supplement with a heating system, so we added a small heat exchanger and fan, pumping hot water from our outdoor wood stove to the hot-house to keep things warm and comfortable.

As we increased in vegetable production, our facility was becoming too small so we soon recognized the need for a bigger “hot-house”. So in the spring of 2015 we decided to expand. The plans were drawn up. Quotes were given. The materials were ordered. While using the existing hot-house last spring, we built the new one right over top of the old one at a size of 20x30 feet instead of 20x7. Once we had the new hot-house roof in place, we dismantled much of the old hot-house a few pieces at a time until all the transplants were moved out to the field. The new hot-house is built with a post and beam method with structural roof trusses and clear polycarbonate roofing to ensure the sunlight can get in. Inside, there are four raised beds, two of which are set up for experimental use, the other 2 are control models. The North end of the hot-house is insulated at an R-12 value for the first 8 feet (walls and ceiling) and a transparent separation curtain can be placed at the 8 foot mark for early season work, keeping the heat in a smaller space but allowing sunlight in. The walls around the hot-house are sectioned in approximately 4x8 foot panels with the first 2 feet at the bottom of these panels clad in weather resistant plywood and insulated to about R-5. A larger heat exchange system is in this space to allow us to continue to do early season work, the heat still being taken from our outdoor wood stove. We don't have any seedling shelving in the new space, so we will quickly realize the need in only a few weeks time. Spring is on the way!

Farm With A Barn

A farm is not complete without a barn. A red barn with white trim is preferable! When we decided to build a barn, we had no idea how it would end up looking because so many changes have come along through the building process!

We knew we wanted the classic look in terms of style, shape, color. We knew we wanted it to function in certain ways – to be used for certain things. So, the rafter shape had to be classic gambrel (Dutch barn) style, a chicken coop was a must as we had chickens in a makeshift space in our shed, a secure storage room for feed and supplies, a stall in the back for Shadow, the very intelligent but bratty pony, a hay mow for the hay to be kept clean and dry and then of course, there's always a need for storage. Searching the internet for a suitable truss plan was foremost and completely achievable. I was able to find a plan and scaled to the footprint we wanted at 32 feet wide.

Sourcing material for much of the project was straight forward, but the hay mow (loft) would be spanning 16 feet from beam to beam under the considerable load of hundreds of hay bales. Lumber that is capable of this load is not available a the local home improvement center, so I went to a local sawmill and found the ideal material for this application, a rough sawn 2x10, fully 2 inches by 10 inches. Based on the building code for joist spans, these full dimension 2x10 are perfect for the application.

The decking for the mow was also picked up at the sawmill, full dimension 1x6, the wall studding as 2x6, and the trusses were sourced from yet another sawmill, clear lumber with no knots, 2x6 inch full dimension. My Dad, knowing lumber from growing up in a sawmill family, was impressed by the rafter lumber's excellent quality!

While choosing all this lumber, we were unable to get the 8 foot length for the wall studs, so the sawmill offered 12 foot substitutes. From there, somehow, we chose to make the barn much higher with 12 foot walls. Suddenly, the building had a real scale to it! With 12 foot high walls and the large gambrel rafters, we now have a barn at 29 feet high! This brings me to the next point, roofing the building. After much debate on color, we chose a dark green shade in classic “Barnmaster” style roofing steel. Installing the steel was a very tedious and slow job, especially with the weather of late September becoming wet and unpredictable, never mind the heights we were working at!

Currently, there is still a lot of finishing to do, but the barn is usable and closed in for the most part.

As needs arise, we will finish up sections to fit the need; and there always seems to be a new need on the farm!

 

Greenhouse Construction Project

When we realized that there might be some potential to grow Heritage Produce in our yard, the thought of a greenhouse came to mind. What would be better than to have a controlled growing environment right in our own back yard? With that, planning started. A modest greenhouse can be purchased for about $4000.00, one with a steel frame, about 20 feet by 40 feet in size. It needs to be shipped to site, site prepared and greenhouse built, covered and ready to go. Our frugal ways challenged that there must be a less expensive way to accomplish this. With a bit of reading and some prior background in wood construction, I felt I could build a frame that would cover 1000 square feet of ground for about ¼ the cost of a purchased greenhouse. I drew up a truss pattern, did a layout, then scaled it to size. Using 1x4 material, wood glue and a few pounds of screws, I started building 22 half-trusses. Each pair were to be set five feet apart, mounted on steel anchors, giving us a 24 x 50 foot unit.

 

Once all the trusses were constructed, the next major step was to prep the ground prior to placing the greenhouse. We wanted to get as much soil loosened up as possible, so we used the plow and set it to cut at maximum depth, turning well over 8 inches of fallowed soil. From there, the area was surveyed to determine level, string-lines were placed and the steel anchors were driven into the ground. Then the trusses were placed and tied together with a simple 1x4 ridge piece being installed as we went.

Once all the trusses were placed, we had the whole family out to pull the plastic up and over the frame.

With that, end wall structure was built and the greenhouse was closed in, complete with door frames, roll-up vents made out of ½ inch electrical conduit attached to the bottom edges of the plastic. In the year following, we added micro-sprinklers along each side of the greenhouse, hanging from overhead, allowing the most natural method of watering the plants. The last photo shows the lush production  The total project cost was about $1100 including the plastic - about 1/4 of the cost of a commercial unit.

Thinking About Land Clearing

As we've been developing the farm, I have been pondering the need to break new ground. Four years ago, I started on a small section of our property I could only call at best, “scrappy bush”. It was really full of Moose Maple, Alders, Poplar and a lot of dead Balsam (thanks to the Spruce Budworm in the 1990s). So away I went with chainsaw in hand, some flagging tape and the farm tractor. If you have an eye for it, you will almost always find a good way to get started on something like this. I found a natural opening off our driveway where I could go in with the tractor and push all the deadfall into piles. Since it was early April, I was able to burn a lot of the debris while there was still snow on the ground. Once I had this first spot clear, I started blazing lines to create a square shaped acre. Seeing our already defined property line where the neigbour's fence was, I headed to it hoping it was going to make a nice straight line, ninety degrees to the fence. Well, not quite, but it was close and it ended up following a natural contour of the hill it is on. Then another blaze line parallel to the fence and then back to the fence, 200 feet further down the hill. Over that summer, I cut the few trees that were in that area, piled them for firewood and then had a large excavator come in to remove the stumps and rake out the rough spots. Since then I have been plowing and pulling roots to make a second planting area.

Last year, we tried potatoes in it for the first time – about 180 pounds of seed yielding about 500 pounds of produce. Not a great return, but new soil is always a hard start.  An elderly cousin told me that first, now I've experienced it!

This year I have marked out an additional space, just over four acres in size. Interestingly, this area has the characteristics of the first area, “scrappy bush” with a low volume of trees, lots of Alder, Moose Maple and deadfall. It also runs along the neighbour's fenceline so I have blazed lines from the fence and then parallel to it, defining the area and giving a proper surveying opportunity of what is in that space. Since this area is so poor in terms of forest, clearing seems the best way to develop it while wanting for additional planting space. This space, once cleared can be seeded as a pasture. When some other part of the vegetable garden needs a rest (to fallow), we can plow a section of the pasture down, prep and plant it as needed.

It is a lot of work when I think about it, but seems the best use of a piece of land we otherwise cannot use.  Of course, what is land clearing without discovering something such as a really old enameled pail, tucked under a broken Birch tree.  To note, since we bought this property, I have found old barbed wire strung through the bush, a pile of old tin cans, a nail puller...I suspect the prior owner attempted to run cattle through this bush before he severed this section off.  It's always interesting to find things out of place.

Photos show the blaze I cut through the bush, the first clearing and also the pail under the tree.

 

The Seed Orders Have Arrived!

This week, I received my seed orders from my suppliers. Now that I have the seeds in hand, no back-orders, deletions or substitutes, I can continue to plan the garden layout.

I am realizing that a plan on paper (I used an aerial photo of the yard and enlarged the garden section) gives a much better idea of what you can do with the space you have. Because I know the exact size of the garden area, I was able to use a scale and complete the layout. Then, to map the layout to ensure you have compatible crops next to each other and crops that shouldn't cross-pollinate far enough away from each other within the same space. So, things like beans can be planted close to corn because beans pull nitrogen into the soil and corn needs a lot of nitrogen to grow successfully. Varieties of corn need a lot of space apart, a good minimum rule is 200 feet. A big factor is prevailing wind that could carry the tassel pollen from one type of corn to another indicating a large separation to insure cross-pollination control. Squash needs separation as well, wind not being the biggest factor but rather the wonderful little pollinators like bumble bees. Practice has shown me that 20 feet will be adequate separation as the bees seem to work a row, like they know what I am up to!

In my seed order I picked up the Rocky Mountain Bee Plant that will help encourage bees in our garden space. Similar to the Scotch Thistle in color and size, I will find a partly shady area to start these plants and hope they truly encourage the bee population to thrive. Placing these along any of our treelines may make the most sense. I will plant more flowers this year – I have ignored this in the past – as the flowers are key to having pollinators that are beneficial to the very crops we want to grow.

It's now time that I merge my seed order with my current stock and update the spreadsheet.

Next article I write will be about our land clearing proposal.

 

Seed Inventory

So with an interest in gardening, we have collected many seed varieties.  Sometimes, you just don't have the room to plant all the seeds you bought or you bought the seeds and they were simply forgotten.  As we inventory what is still here at the farm, we can project what we want to plant and make a seed order for this planting year.  Creating an inventory spreadsheet is an important exercise that allows you to see your varieties and quantities at a glance.  In my spreadsheet I added a "notes" column because I want to know where the seed came from.  We saved a few varieties of bean and squash and this is put in the note column.  The seed orders are nearly ready to be sent, a first indicator of the coming season!
Photo 1 - different seeds from various seed companies.
Photo 2 - Sadie's Horse Beans which we save each year.  These grow on a vine with amazing red and white flowers - strictly ornamental!

A New Growing Season

This year at Pennerfarm, we will be increasing our heritage vegetable production levels and adding a few new vegetable varieties that we had trialed last year.  It may seem early to think about seeds, plants and produce, but in just over a month, we will be seeding the varieties that need an early start such as tomatoes, peppers and onions.  This week will include the finalization of seed orders and a bit more planting layout to ensure we have the right amounts of the right produce.  Of course, everything depends on the weather; rain, sun, temperatures.  A heavy rain in early May can set back planting by a week, a significant delay in Dryden's short growing season.  One feature of our farm is a greenhouse that we can heat both with hot air and sub-soil heat.  This gives us a few extra weeks of growing time for some crops.  It also gives a warm place for the early seedlings to grow in-tray prior to transplanting outdoors.In he weeks to come, we will chart progress and post here, which will be beneficial as the produce becomes ready.  We will include the Farmer's Market dates and locations as they approach.First photo - Greenhouse prepped for transplants.
Second photo - Our old Hot-house for keeping seedlings was too small at 7x20 feet, even with racking installed.  Our new greenhouse can also function as a hot-house but at a much larger 20x30 feet.