An aerial view of the greenhouse!



The photo was taken this morning, before I finished the benches.

this looks so nice. I congratulate you on a job well done.

Great shots! I have to depend on Google satellite!

Benches look great too! You are fast, already getting them done! I'm impressed.

That looks SO GREAT, Dave!

NICE benches!! Perfect height. And I like the way you "indented" them for extra easy-access space.

Great aerial shot. Lotta life going on there..from barn, chicken coop, greenhouse. Ya gotta love it!

Thanks you all! We're definitely having fun!!

Those benches are beautiful, too pretty to cover up with plants.

Dave, beautiful benches, that cedar should last for years. I had window boxes made of cedar and they really lasted. Many of the old glass houses I worked on and in had cypress bars and benches. When we tore out some 20-30 year old benches we reused much of the wood. Getting it up here is near impossible and I can't imagine the cost.
Cool aerial.

Eastern Red Cedar is plentiful down here and the sawmill in Rusk, TX has an astounding selection. I bought these 1x4x8 boards for $3.50 each. It took 13 boards total to make these benches so the cedar cost was $45.50. I also used three 2x6x12 PT boards for the horizontal supports and three 4x4x8 PT posts for the vertical posts. Oh, and 3 sacks of quikrete.

How did you get the aerial shot?

My dad is a pilot and came to visit us over the weekend. While he was here he took us up for a flight around the farm.

Dad sounds way cool!

Most definitely.

@dave, thinking ahead here. I do that. If I think of every step ahead of time, visualize it as well as potential problems, the GH is good as built when I am ready, at least in my head. Things will go smoothly as long as I anticipate each step.

I plan to make a ramp to access the GH from the outside going in for rolling in the large plants on dollies for the winter. But I was thinking there is a drop off once inside the GH as well! And higher if we have to mount the base on something besides a level deck. What are you doing for that drop off? Are you filling it with gravel?? A ramp? A step? Just thinking aloud here....

That part is a work in progress for us. We did fill with gravel today (I'll get pictures) and that helps a huge amount! What I'm thinking of is using the gravel inside and out to make it ramp up toward the entrance. So you walk up a ramp gravel and right into the GH and then down a ramp of gravel into the level gravel. I hope that's clear enough. I'll have pictures soon.

Here's pics of the floor. You can also see our raised bed that we made on the north wall. It's not yet completely filled with material yet.

Be forewarned Dave,

The Harbor Freight greenhouses are great;... yet to keep them from major wind damage in the future, do need internal supports.

I love mine and have been using it 3 years now, yet have heard horror stories from others who did not build a bracing system inside before getting to involved in plants and other developments.

All the posts inside mine are of course the typical 2 feet deep and the cross beams create hanging plant and shelving but more importantly are installed with hurricane strapping. Pilot holes were drilled into the aluminum framing and screws were added through it and into the post framing before the panels were added. These are great greenhouses! The instructions are not difficult as some reports have said, and my sliding doors work perfectly after 3 years.The polycarbonate panels can be extended in life with exterior shade cloth that can be removed in Winter and rehooked in the Summer. They will get very hot inside in Summer without it.

A fan added to the back panel will help with the 4 vents open.

They work great in the Winter in our more Southern areas with the addition of a small oscillating tower type heater or one of your choice. These are best suited to keeping plants alive in the South and likely would not help much in the North, and especially without supports as the top likely would not handle the weight of heavy snow.





This isn't a great pic but its to show that basic window fans (and very affordable compared to 'greenhouse' fans which are rediculously expensive) work fine. This one fit in here, is a twin fan unit meant to fit house windows and can either exhaust or blow or a combination. It even has a thermostat and under 40 bucks!

Happy Gardening!

David

Thanks for sharing your tips and photos, David. I love that structure you built to hold the shadecloth! I very well might copy that exactly.

Great tips, @DavidofDeLand. We run into the occasional hurricane or two and am familiar with hurricane clips. Nice look on the wood beams, too. A nice option to EMT. The shade cloth "holder" is beautiful! Love the color of your shade cloth. It's not your run of the mill gray. I like it! I will be looking for the double fan. Where would I begin to search for one of those??