Greens

After a busy (but successful!) final exams season, followed by one delightful week in Mallorca, I am BACK! I am on summer vacation and plan on enjoying a huge amount of time in my greenhouse, my garden and at the creativity table.

We have been so busy on the greenhouse project that all the so-called flowerbeds, as well as both the terraces are totally overgrown with weeds. So the cleanup of these is definitely high up on my to-do list. Thankfully, things are going very well now in the greenhouse. My very nice neighboor took really good care of it in our absence (and fed my cats!). I was delighted to see how much everything had grown in just one week! (the plants, not the cats)

Greenhouse is really getting green!

Some 8 varieties of tomatoes, 2 varieties of cucumbers, Apache chilies, jalapenoes, bell peppers, sweet peppers, a few different sorts of herbs (including a lot of basil, green and red) and a few more things are all doing really great! I've eaten my first mini-cucumbers, some red juicy strawberries and beautiful lettuce already.

Inuksuk found its home!

Pick-and-eat lettuce and strawberry leveled pot. 

I don't have many flowers, but can definitely see that I will be looking more into that next year.

Meanwhile, the vegetable garden is also picking up in pace. I've tried sweet corn again this year and it seems to be doing much better than last year. I started it in paper pots and carefully tranplanted them a few weeks ago, trying not to disturb the roots. 

The red kuri squash and pumpkin plants took a while to "feel home" on the veggie patch, but also seem to be growing now. 

The romaine lettuce is beautiful, as are the onions!  Today, I finally transplanted a zuchini plant, some interesting kinds of beans I received from my good friend and some peas, which I all had started a few weeks ago and just never had time to transplant. 

Veggie garden. Corn, beans, squashes, onions, lettuce, peas. 

If you guys remember well, last year, my husband and I built a compost bin. I have been using some of the resulting compost to enrich the soil on the patch, which came from the hole we dug for the greehouse, so wasn't the very best soil for a garden. This seems to especially have made a difference with the corn. It went from a pale green to a nice healthy green, and more than doubled in size since I added compost around the plants. :D

Following advice from the experienced, I started covering the soil with cut grass to help retain some humidity. The only problem is that our lawn mower is specially made to cut grass in tiny tiny pieces so that we don't have to pick it up, and it feeds the lawn at the same time. (it is called Bio-cut). So it makes it difficult to find enough grass to cover the whole garden patch. I have to go along the bicycle trail behind our lot! 

That's it for now.... happy summer everyone!

Finished greenhouse

It is about time I post a new picture of the greenhouse! I've been so busy preparing for exams lately that I'm afraid blog time was put a little bit aside.

The floor is now finished! I can use my greenhouse and organize it and put my own colours in it now.... as soon as exam season is over! :D
We still need to connect electricity and water to the sources, but those are details we can take care of a bit later.

Greenhouse Project: Greenhouse!

We have a greenhouse!!!

The greenhouse is now complete with glass, 3 windows and double sliding doors. It is officially useable, even though we are still missing a proper floor. 

It was a long but very satisfying day!

Greenhouse Project: Getting there!

Another very busy weekend behind us (and in our every muscle!). We had beautiful weather to work outside, and work outside we did, Saturday and Sunday, from morning to evening. We also achieved a lot! 

So here's what we've done since my last entry: 

The electricy cable and the water hose are in place. They are not yet attached to the source, but that can be done later on.

Electricy and water

After much work, the deep hole for the gabion was dug. It was interesting to see the different layers of soil as I was getting deeper and deeper. I am still very impressed by the layer of beautiful clay down there. I am equally impressed by how hard the soil was in the last 20 cm or so. "Breaking the soil" would better describe the way we got through the last layer!

Hole for the gabion

Good fit! 

With the gabion pit taken care of, we were able to place the pipes. Shame I forgot to take a picture before we buried them. But anyway... We placed one pipe from the water corner (future sink on the ground kind of thing), and we placed one pipe from each of the 2 corners where the gutters come down. Each of the 3 pipes lead right over the gabion. 

We can decide, later on, to gather the rain water in stead for use in the greenhouse. But seeing as we don't have the equipment for this just now, the water needs to go somewhere. So to the gabion it is for the time being. 

Gabion wrapped in textile. 3 pipes leading to it. 

With all the underground stuff done, we started bringing in the sand/gravel mix. This will provide a stable layer under the finer sand that will serve as bed for the paving stones. 

Placing the gravel. 

After the physically demanding gravel step, we were finally there! We finally reached the "put-the-puzzle-together" step!!! 

It looks like a gigantic aquarium!

Studying the plan

Taking its shape... 

Sunday evening: It actually looks like a greenhouse!

YESSS!! It looks like a greenhouse! WAHOOO!!! We're almost there! To-do list for the next few days include finishing the puzzle (i.e.: door and windows) and placing the glass panels. 

If all goes well, I should have a useable greenhouse by next weekend! It won't be totally finished, as we will do the floor only a little later on, but I will be able to use it and work in it and grow things in it! 

What a lovely dream.... Oh wait! I'm awake!

YAYYYY!!! :D

Greenhouse Project: Foundation

Yesterday, for probably the first time since we started this project, everything went exactly as planned! The base of the greenhouse has been set in place, leveled and adjusted in height. We checked and double checked and triple checked everything before and while pouring cement in the holes / tubes and finally locking the base in place. 

Mixing cement

So the foundation is done. I can't believe we're finally there! We are getting closer and closer to having a usable greenhouse. :) :) :)

Greenhouse foundation

We had ordered some sand a good while ago, but we won't have enough. So another load has been ordered and should arrive within just a couple of days. As soon as it arrives, we'll be able to fill the pit to bring the floor up to the right level.

Other assignments in the near future include digging (yes... more digging!) a deeper hole behind the greenhouse for the gabion. (Note: "Gabion" is a word I have JUST learned by translating from the danish word "faskine". If I am using the term incorrectly, please somebody correct me! Thank you). 

Anyways... The gabion will be part of the water evacuation system for the greenhouse. It is essentially just a big box made of grid-tubes together, covered with a textile and burried in the ground. This create a reservoir for excess water to drip in, and slowly seeps through the textile and into the ground. This helps avoid the forming of puddles on the surface. There will be a water gathering system incorporated to the floor of the greenhouse. That system will be connected with pipes to the gabion and voila! No water problem! (hopefully!)

We also need to dig channels from the house to the greenhouse for the electricity wire and the water hose. 

This is all really cool and quite important details, but what I'm REALLY looking forward too now is to FINALLY mount the greenhouse "skeleton". This will hopefully also happen within a short time. :)

Here's hoping for good weather again next weekend!

Greenhouse project: The box is open!

This is getting really exciting! Yesterday, while I was out, my wonderful husband finished digging out the 560cm x 410 cm x 20 cm hole in preparation to the building our our greenhouse. So with the area ready, we FINALLY allowed ourselves to open the boxes containing the pieces for the greenhouse frame. WOOHOOO we're getting somewhere!!

We found the pieces we needed and put the base together. After using it to carefully measure where to dig for the 6-pillar foundation, we proceeded to dig those 6 holes, which needed to be about 60 cm deep. It was really excited to see the base "in place" for the first time. It was equally exciting to dig the 6 holes. It finally feels like we're doing something constructive and getting closer to our goal!

"Drilling"

Drilling too. 

"Drilling" the holes was fairly easy at first. It goes well with the drilling tools. However, it is impressive to feel the different layers of soil as the holes get deeper and deeper. At some point, we hit a very compact but beautiful layer of clay! I couldn't resist taking some of that pretty clay and putting it aside in a plastic bag. Maybe I can do something with it a bit later on. Some of the soil layers are pretty difficult to drill through, especially towards the end of the day when we both were starting to feel pretty exhausted. 

Am I that exhausted??

Nooo of course not! I'm just trying to free an annoying big rock that refrains us from drilling any deeper!

Ah, but no matter the layer of compact soil and clay and the rock obstacles... by the time we came in for dinner at the end of the day, all 6 holes were drilled and we were pretty proud of ourselves!

Greenhouse base placed over the 6 holes for the foundation pillars

We expect to pour the cement in the holes tomorrow! If all goes well, the base should really be in place before we start the new week. This is perfect, as it will dry/harden before we have time to take further steps. But once the base is solidly anchored in the cement pillars, we can safely mount the rest of the frame! How exciting is that!!!

It looks like I might have my greenhouse before the end of the season after all. hehehe  :)

We have a square!

Spring arrived at long last! The snow is gone and Spring flowers are bringing life onto the landscape again with their vibrant colours. Temperatures went up rather suddenly some days ago and we have been enjoying some beautiful sunny days.

Crocus

Between work, school and homework, we have been able to come out and do some more on the greenhouse project. The area for the "building site" has been carefully measured and marked with very visible orange cord, which Tiana found quite interesting!

Tiana couldn't resist!

We then removed the grass layer. It was getting very exciting when we started seeing the actual "square" where the greenhouse will stand!

The grass is removed on almost all of the area on this picture. 

Now that the grass is removed and the area is clearly marked, we could start digging.

Digging... The area here is clearly visible.  Note that the  greenhouse will be smaller than the area on the picture. We added 50 cm all around for paving stones. 

More digging... 

We need to go 20 cm down on the whole area. It is hard work, but it's also a lot more fun than cutting down trees and digging out roots! We did about 1/3 of the digging step in one afternoon. The rest will need to wait to the weekend. The "hole" will eventually be filled with sand (possibly two kinds, in layers) and paving stones will be layed on top as floor in and around the greenhouse.

With the good weather finally here, I am looking even more forward (is that possible) to the greenhouse being up and usable!
We'll get there... :)