Update on the new Greenhouse.

A couple folks emailed me and asked how the new greenhouse was going, lots of learning as it's completely different from what I did have.  I still love it!!  Only problem is I didn't have the heart to chalk the panels so I had to find a way to keep the heat in.  I didn't think of putting up bubble wrap which one friend suggested this past week.   I figured the first year would be a learning year and it has been.  So since it wasn't chalked we decided to tarp it.  Late in the fall I was finding lots of debris
from the neighbor's pine on it and the sap was just unbelievable hard to remove so I covered it with a piece of plastic and tucked it up so the windows could open.  We started with that and added the old blue tarp from the old greenhouse and soon found it wasn't big enough.  So we found a heavy duty silver one at Harbor Freight that would fit over the top.  I allow my husband to decide how to put it up and boy was that a big mistake!   We folded it in half and covered the back of the greenhouse and allowed the old blue tarp to cover the front and allow the one side to open for the door.  We soon found out with the last wind storm and the 67 mph winds that that wasn't going to work!  So the next day I found myself putting the plastic and tarps back up.  This time I decided to just put the plastic back up and cover the front with the blue tarp like we had it but the silver tarp I found covered the whole greenhouse with plenty of room in the back to tuck it into the brick area.  Photos will show just how well this worked.

Here is the plastic cover and in the spring I'll cut the bottom off so that the windows will open and then tape the top to fit to protect from the sap.

Next is the old tarp to cover the door front.

 

Here is the east side all tied down.

This is the silver tarp and how it is tied down so I can get in the front of the greenhouse.All I do is lift the front corner and slide in after untying it.  Husband would like to put  a velcro door on the front but for now we are not going to temp it.  I go in every few days and water when things look dry.  I currently have two small heaters inside to warm it at night.  Our temps so far have stayed above freezing with only a hand full of nights dipping to lower 30s.  With the last wind storm we had our power outage of a few minutes so I had to go out and reset the heaters.  I have some buckets of water out there just in case to keep warmth inside.  Next year I hope to have a rain barrel in there for water use and also keep it warm.  Might have to do this after the holiday as our temps about to drop some.