When I first mentioned to some friends that I was building a trellis for grape vines, they gave me a puzzled look and asked if it was indoors.
Nope.
We made this trellis using 10 ft 4x4s, so with the spike post holders it is over 10 ft tall. When I first put it up Naomi thought it was way too tall. And it did look a bit ridiculous in the early spring with just four bare vines climbing up. As the weather warmed and leaves started filling out it looked fine. This is how it looked before our 3.5 week trip east.
And upon our return we found this monstrosity…
It is hard to get a decent picture of this thing as there isn’t much room between it and the fence and it is so big. There are just two Valiant Grape vines in there and they have filled this 10 x 0 ft (3 x 3 m ) trellis. We made the trellis with steel cable strung between the two beams and has turnbuckles to change the tension of the wires. Next year we might make an archway for it to grow over the walkway.
Naomi has enjoyed learning more about how to care for and prune grape vines to increase their yield, as it’s given her greater insight into the passage in John 15 that speaks of Christ being like a vine, with us as His branches. AND we get grape jelly out of it to boot!
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. John 15:1-4
The dome is 5.4 meters (18 feet) across, and about 3 m (10 feet) high in the centre of the dome with a 3v frequency design. It is very strong, and can easily support my weight on top, and will shed snow and support the snow load in the winter. We live in a 3a hardiness zone, and this close to the mountains we can get very late frosts in the Spring or early ones in Fall, and theoretically could get a freak snow fall at any time. Hail storms are also a problem around here during the summer. All this makes a greenhouse a very valuable addition to our gardening as it can really expand a very short growing season.
Before we could move it, the greenhouse had to be carefully taken apart, cleaned, and re-stained. We prepared the ground for it on October 26 by taking up the sod and tilling the earth.
The next day it snowed… and that snow stayed until April.
We kept the wood framing inside all winter, waiting for some nice weather to come. Once the snow melted, the base was levelled to prepare for the dome. We put concrete blocks under it to keep the wood off the ground.
This is a time lapse video that I made of the construction back in May. Don’t be fooled by it. Despite the four seasons seen in it, this was done over the course of an evening and a Saturday in mid-May.
Putting the skin on – a special greenhouse quality, UV resistant poly.
Digging the hole for the water tank. The tank is on the north side of the greenhouse, right next to the door (just off the right side of the picture). By burying the bottom of the tank, it gives it the strength to hold in the immense water pressure. The purpose of the water tank is to provide some thermal inertia, if you will. It absorbs heat during the day, and helps keep the greenhouse warm at night. I have some water hoses that circulate water around the base of the plants. In the spring, that water hose can be more than 10C warmer than the air around it at night.
Painting the water tank. Ellie made her own old-timey bonnet.
To keep the greenhouse from overheating, there are four self-opening windows, two down low and two near the top of the dome. As the openers get warm, the hydraulic cylinder pushes the window out. We mounted a fan that is controlled by a timer on one of the top windows to force more hot air out the top. Once the sun shines on the greenhouse for awhile, the windows start opening up like petals on a flower.
Greenhouse set up and first plants in the ground! This photo was taken on May 22, 2014 – a bit of a late start because of the construction of the dome. The tomatoes were planted a bit too close together… live and learn.
The greenhouse fits in nicely in the back half of the backyard. The house had some large perennial flower beds when we bought it, and we have tried to keep them up, but we are slowing changing some of the landscaping over to foodscaping – landscaping with a purpose.
We had the greenhouse set up for about a month before we left on a 3.5 week trip to Ontario and New Brunswick! Thankfully, Naomi’s parents were able to keep an eye on the greenhouse in our absence. Here is how it looked when we left (June 23). The milk jugs are there to absorb heat during the day and radiate it back to the plants at night, which can get pretty cool this close to the mountains (between 7 and 13C, or 44F to 55F), even in July and August.
And when we got back on July 17:
We hung up some frost cloth on the south side to block a bit of sun and help cut down on heat a bit. On a cool day it can still get over 30C (86F) in there, and a hot (for here) day of 30 C it gets around 37C (97F) inside.
When we left for our trip we had one plant coming up that we didn’t recognize. It just had two big leaves, and looked similar to the broccoli that we had growing in there. We figured we would leave it there and see what it was when we got back. Well, we were surprised to return the next month to discover a giant canola plant! Not sure how that seed got in there…
The greenhouse is an important part of our gardening. Inside we have:
Bell peppers
Chili Peppers
Banana Peppers
Cherry tomatoes
Lots and lots of tomatoes. The ones above are roma tomatoes.
Peas
Cucumbers
Garden fresh herbs – rosemary, oregano, 2 types of sage, 2 types of basil, and thyme.
We are very thankful to have it to protect the crop from nasty weather as the greenhouse has already withstood many rain and hail storms. The plastic isn’t really tight and has enough give in it to bounce off most hail, but if it gets extreme it will probably get shredded. I have seen hail around here strip the vinyl siding off of a house..
It is too hot right now, but later we will try planting some lettuce in the greenhouse so we can hopefully have fresh greens, hopefully right into mid to late fall.
We have already been enjoying eating quite a bit of fresh food from our green house, and are looking forward to the harvest to come. Along with the rest of the gardens, we have had some very tasty and nutritious home grown food!
I always thought of myself as having a black thumb, since house plants experience a steady decline from the moment they enter our home.
In other words, I kill plants.
So I figured any vegetable garden I planted would face a similar doom under my care. Instead, I discovered that I really enjoyed gardening. The excitement of planting a tiny seed and actually see the thing sprout, then the satisfaction of harvesting tasty organic vegetables in the end was definitely worth the minimal effort on my part (read: I get lazy about weeding). I’ve learned a lot about what not to do and a few things that I found worked well. The kids enjoyed helping me plant and harvest, especially Adelaine.
Ellie’s imagination would take off soon after work commenced and she’d forget that she was supposed to be helping.
And Ethan, well, Ethan was better at stomping on my plants than helping them to grow – at least the plants had to develop strong roots to withstand his trampling!
Adelaine, on the other hand, is a very hard worker when she sets her mind to it and she was a great help with planting my onions, shallots and garlic, and then later harvesting my potatoes. I have no clue how well my garden did – I have nothing to compare it to – but I would say we were at least successful at growing some lovely food and I look forward to another garden next year!
