| Author |
Message |
    
Tim
| | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 09:02 am EST : |   
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I'm making plans for a fourth glasshouse to use primarily as a sales house. Since the existence of the nursery became 'official' a month or so ago, we decided that all of the plants available for sale need to be in one place and be easy to get to; at the moment they are strewn across two polytunnels in no particular order.
I'm hoping to make progress weekly, so I will post photos every Sunday until the project is finished. The first photo is of the site and was taken last Sunday. The second photo was taken this morning. The next photo will hopefully be of the concrete base laid down. Please excuse the mess you see in the photos :-)
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Carol23
| | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 09:46 am EST : |
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Congratulations, Tim! Wishing you all the best.
Carol23
- Southeastern PA,
Zone "6B"
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 10:51 am EST : |
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This should be fun Tim, we get to see the progress and no hard work for us!
Are those your glasshouses too on the left side of the picture yours? You know I am green with envy of all your glasshouses.
By the way, is the concrete floor a must? I would think for me (if I ever get one) that it would not be good in the winter because of possible water freezing or is it that if you maintain the temperature slightly above the freezing temp of 32F it won't happen?
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Tim
| | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 03:49 pm EST : |
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Thanks Carol! Terry, the glasshouses on the left are mine. They are my two original small glasshouses and are 6x4 feet in size. To the left of those is the larger 12x8 feet glasshouse. The new one will make even that look small; it is 20x8.5 feet.
The concrete base is essential because of the size and weight of the new glasshouse. The other ones sit on bases made up of slabs. You wouldn't have to have a concrete base for a small glasshouse.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Charles
| | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 04:05 pm EST : |
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Wow, 4 greenhouses! I put one in last year, a Rion 12' 6" x 6' 6". I got it in a little late, so this will be my first full season of usage. I look forward to seeing the progress and completion of yours, Tim. There is nothing quite like relaxing or working in your own greenhouse and enjoying what you have growing.
Charles
- WI,
Zone "4b"
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Tim
| | Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2007 - 09:56 am EST : |
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Hello Charles, I seem to have missed your post until now... yeah, it does seem a little excessive sometimes. What you can't see behind where I stood to take the photos are the two polytunnels :-) The downside to having all of this cover is that the watering wears thin very quickly when the summer begins. It's all worth it though when the hellebores and cyclamen are in flower.
This update is a day early. We spent Good Friday laying the concrete base. Work started at 10am and we finished at 8.30pm in the dark after having mixed 3 tons of ballast with half a ton of cement. We have a cement mixer but it was still hard work, so much so that although we were both very tired, the aching kept us awake most of the night...
This photo was taken early this morning while I was surveying my work of art... it seems a shame to have to cover it up with a glasshouse.
I'll update again when the glasshouse arrives and assembly begins.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2007 - 10:42 am EST : |
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Great job, better you two them me! Did you carve your initials in a corner with the date?
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Notmartha
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Garden
| | Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2007 - 12:08 pm EST : |
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very nice cant wait to see it all set up!
I to was going to ask if you carved your names or something in the cement!
congrats
dori
Notmartha
- mi,
Zone "6a"
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Tim
| | Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2007 - 07:23 pm EST : |
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Everybody has asked this! No, we didn't do anything like that... it would have ruined my art! Seriously, we were so tired when we finished that the thought didn't enter our heads. We do have a few paw prints from the cats though :)
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Jgwoodard
My Garden
| | Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2007 - 07:55 pm EST : |
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Excellent! :-)
Jgwoodard
- TN,
Zone "7"
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2007 - 11:19 pm EST : |
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Well at least some memories will be imprinted in it! I guess you can always remember to do it on the next one
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Tim
| | Posted on Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 04:21 pm EST : |
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I've just realised I missed an 's' out of glasshouse in the thread title...
No photographic update today. The shuttering is off of the concrete and it is looking good. The glasshouse arrives on Tuesday.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, April 15, 2007 - 05:02 pm EST : |
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And we'll be waiting for photos!
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Tim
| | Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 03:05 pm EST : |
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An update: the glasshouse arrived on Tuesday but without the base. Whoever loaded the truck up forgot it. It was promised on Thursday but never arrived. Finally, on Saturday morning the base arrived... with the wrong address on it.
Anyway, I have been tied up with another project which you can see the progress of in all of these photos if you look hard enough at all of the photos. The 10 feet high hedge in the distance down the side of the house is gone and I have built a picket fence in its place. I did manage to get the glasshouse base assembled yesterday.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 06:16 pm EST : |
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I am exhausted just thinking about all that work Tim! It's looking good.
Can't wait for the next installment...
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Tim
| | Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 04:17 pm EST : |
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Today I finished the construction of the new glasshouse. I have to build the staging for it yet, but I'm in no rush and have until the autumn to do it.
Can you guess what I did when I finally finished? I opened this...
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
 Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Sunday, April 29, 2007 - 08:41 pm EST : |
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The glasshouse looks fantastic! So are you coming to NY soon to help me put one up? I can't believe how fast you got it.
Boy do you deserve that beer!
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Terryk
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 06:23 am EST : |
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OK, now that I have looked again, questions from the envious one.
Is the floor bolted or somehow secured to the cement?
My never ending question-when you water, how will it drain?
When I went to my garden club and the speaker was talking about his solar greenhouse, he had rigged up a system where the rain water was funneled into a huge drum by means of a gutter and downspout and this was his source for watering his plants. It probably also aided in the solar heat of the greenhouse.
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Tim
| | Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 02:18 pm EST : |
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Hi Terry,
The base will eventually be screwed down to the concrete pad. If you look in the photo of the bottle of beer, you can see one of the screws that holds the glasshouse frame to the aluminium base. It's just to the left of the top label on the bottle. In the top left of the photo you should be able to see a joining bracket which joins the two lengths of the aluminium base... either side of that bracket you can see some bolts which have been slid into a containing rail. Using L-shaped brackets, it is these bolts which will anchor the whole glasshouse and base to the concrete.
The base isn't watertight so any excess water will drain away through the gaps. Also, even on a sunny day in winter the temperature will probably be high enough for evaporation to occur.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 - 10:56 pm EST : |
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Thanks Tim for the info.
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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Tim
| | Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2007 - 04:25 pm EST : |
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Well, it is autumn and the staging was finished late last night. It took me two days to build all five benches.
The benches did not hold plants straight away... they held this well earned bottle of beer.
Today I moved my stock cyclamen into their new home. At least I have spare room so that I can select new stock plants from my seedlings.
Tim
- Cambridgeshire,
Zone "7 "
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Terryk
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