Ultimate Upcycle - building the green house

Two years ago my neighbors helped us build a greenhouse. Separate from the house, insulated with blue board on the walls, and on the floor is blue board with 1/2" of concrete  on the top.  It holds the heat really well but right at this point is not a year round green house.  I have been reading Elliot Colemans book about the year round greenhouse and we have tried some of the methods in there - however - it got down to -52 below and all my stuff died.  So we go forward with faith and a solar system that we are working on - that is for another blog however!

Today I want to tell you about the mostly easy and almost all upcycled greenhouse we built, with a lot of help from my friends, family and my neighbor - who is also a best friend and her husband who was on Chemo for cancer at the time.  He worked us into the dirt literally with his chemo pack on!  I thank the Goddess every day for him and for the amazing greenhouse he built for me!

To start with we cleared a space big enough for the 16x20 foot greenhouse I had planned and then we partially buried treated wood timbers that we were able to find free from Craigslist - we just had to haul them away! 

We then poured sand down as a base for the blue board with concrete on top - which we got on Craigslist for $2.00 per sheet.  After that it was a frame-a-thon, but first we got windows - you can see part of them here - we got them free from one of the contractors doing energy efficiency upgrades for homes in the area.  Again - we just had to haul them away!  We had to choose which windows we were using first so we had the framed areas properly outlined.

We built the greenhouse in a barn shape to catch all of the suns rays in the winter - the sun in Alaska is pretty flat on the landscape and windows on a flat plane dont catch as much of the sun as windows at the angle of the barn shape side.  We did mostly new 2x4's and new roofing material which is rolled felt and rolled shingle lapped and sealed.


 

 The above photo shows the ceiling with the blue board insulation and you can see two mirrors there as well.  Those collect light and reflect it back to the center of the greenhouse so even if my plants grow up tall in front of the windows, the plants in the center of the greenhouse still get light.  It works great and the mirrors are really pretty ones that I got at the Thrift store for about $10.00 each.  They act like skylights.  I will add more as we go to up the effect and once lights are added will arrange them for the best effect.

Here is the back of the greenhouse - two of these three windows open.  Notice the eave of the greenhouse - we started out with the eave right on the roofline of the building but we found that all of the windows would not seal effectively on the angle, and that the summer sun was too hot sometimes for the plants so we added this one foot eave and it has solved all of the probelms with heat and leaks!

The front of the greenhouse is the home of a great set of french doors that open in - traded for some of the left over windows to a friend - so free!  We had them open in so that no matter how deep snow got I can still open them to get into the greenhouse and shovel snow out - or just get in.  Both doors are openers so I can get large loads in the wheelbarrow or yard cart or even from the back of a truck in there! 

 

The greenhouse is plced in the lee of our house so when the wind blows in the winter it is protected by the main house.  It slows the morning sun in the early spring, but usually we have sun on the greenhosue by no later than 10:00 am no matter what time of year we are in.

 

It is still a work in progress - in need of paint, and some foam insulation to seal some gaps and cracks in the blue board, but we are getting produce until Late October right now and one time into November so we are moving in the right direction.  Ill keep posting as we add new features.  If you have any questions please ask and Ill do my best to answer!  Happy producing!