How DO you drip...

So part of having a greenhouse is having the advantage of being able to set up permanent irrigation which is a time saver for me! 

So I will keep this entry short, there really isn't much to explain here. 

I am using a dripworks "system"  But to be honest... It's 5/8in irrigation line and a few twist loc fittings made for the line, the emitters are Rainbird 1 gph (don't buy these, the dripworks emitters are far higher quality) , and the drip line is a flexible vinyl 1/4in line. All you need is a punch tool and a decent pair of pliers to punch the emitters into the line. 

I use a 30/40 psi pressure regulator, and quick connect hose fittings. 

I tried to branch as many lines together, each tray gets one line, 3 lines per shelf, 9 lines per shelving unit. 

And some seedling progress pictures!  Most are just breaking the soil now. 

Ok Pete, But Why? Why all this...

So I get asked a lot, I also get comments, and opinions here and there that sound like this...

Why spend all that extra money for a greenhouse?

Isn't it a ton of extra work?

What benefit do you get in the end?

I want my plants hardy, I dont want Greenhouse plants.

What difference does it really make? 

Let me start out by saying, I got a greenhouse for many reasons, some that make sense, some that might not make a bit of sense to you at all. 

Here are my reasons and/or Answers to those questions.

For starters, I love plants, and hate winter. Winter is a dismal, boring, ugly time of year if you enjoy gardening or being outside. Nothing is green, you can't be outside to really do much, the day is so short light wise.  My Greenhouse is my pick me up, It's a little dose of wintertime joy...  Imagine walking through 2 feet of snow and then opening the door to the greenhouse, you walk in, it has that tropical smell, everything is green and growing it's 65 degrees and humid and you just look back outside to a world of snow that you just temporarily just left. 

Why dont I just move? In an ironic twist of fate, my living is dependant upon selling parts for a brand of car that is primarily only sold in cold, wintery places. My livelihood depends on shitty cold snowy weather. 

That alone was and is worth the cost I have outlaid.

As for the extra work part.  I can see how some people might think this, I enjoy the work. But honestly with all the advancements in automation, and greenhouse controls... It's not much. Digging, splitting, potting, planting seedlings out, making new gardens are still my number one time hog. Don't get me wrong, the initial setup of the greenhouse will be time consuming, but its not the time vampire you imagine it to be.   

What do I benefit?  Well that question has a few answers- 

1. My happiness (See first answer) 

2. Accelerates my program.

3. Allows me to reliably experiment or bring southern genes into Northern plants.

4. Allows me to get greater growth, plant division, quicker.

5. Allows me to set difficult conversion pods or pollen within a controlled environment.

6. Gives me a controlled environment to grow out new arrivals

7. I believe I can offset the cost of the Greenhouse

8. More seeds! 

9. Way longer bloom season.

So let me explain those Answers.  I will be a bit brief in my explanations here.

2. With Pod harvest in June, I am able to get my seeds planted in July. Planting in July and growing the seedlings in the greenhouse till spring next year should result in a very high percentage of first year blooms such as planting in florida. In the south its typical to get bloom in 10-12 months.  I am going to grow them year round for the same reason. This will allow me to see results of crosses, and improve upon or abandon certain lines as fast as you would in the south. 

3. Now some may agree or disagree with this,  Doesn't matter to me, some of the best northern breakthroughs have been by bringing southern genetics into northern plants. 

4. 10.5 months of growth as opposed to 5-6 months.

5. Some plants are just difficult pod setters, or the pollen is iffy.  Trying to do this when its 85 degrees out and the sun is beating down on you only ups the chance of failure. The controlled environment is key to getting seed from difficult plants.  

6. Spring of 2016 was a hard one, as was the growing season. It was very wet and cold in april and may, and extremely hot and dry the rest of the year.  I had many new arrivals rot, or just not grow because of the less then ideal environment.  Being able to pot new arrivals and let them grow in a controlled environment and grow to a nice large size to be fall planted will hopefully reduce any losses.

7. How?  Well almost everything I have in the Greenhouse I have growing outside.  So at the end of my growing season, and pod setting season It'll be july.  At that point I will need to divide out any increase in the pots. These plants will be large in size, easy to divide, and be perfect for fall planting.  I hope to sell  roughly 200 plants a year to offset the cost of operating the greenhouse.

8. Pretty easy here.  I can make way more seeds with two bloom seasons then one. 

9. Here's the best benefit, I will get two bloom seasons, and higher percent of rebloom. So I will get to enjoy bloom from april to october! 

Now, I've heard the typical "I dont want greenhouse plants"  Well neither do I, and in a 13 x 26 foot greenhouse I couldn't grow out an intro in there If I wanted to.  All seedlings will go outside and meet their fate with winter.  Its up to them to survive or not. 

What difference does it make?  This is really subjective.  Do you need it? Nope.  I wanted it.  For all the reasons above.  I think It'll help me establish myself with a great stock of seedlings and hopefully introduce some worthy plants in the coming years. As with almost anything, its for my personal enjoyment. 

Time to get your chill on...

So, I bet you are slightly wondering... What do you do with the dormants?

Good question, Some dormants or "deciduous" Daylilies will perform fine without having a cold period, and notably there are still quite a few that will perform in lackluster fashion if not given that (Think RFK) 

To make the management of all my plants as easy as possible, I take all of my pots out in early november.  I leave anything that you would consider tender inside, but hardy EV's and All SEV plants go outside also. 

I do this for two reasons, I want bloom on a set cycle and a safeguard against rust. 

The pots are all placed within a wind protected wood framed box, and once the foliage goes down, I will cover the pots with frost blankets.  I am trying to keep wild temperature swings from happening when doing this. I also want to avoid daily Freeze/Thaw cycles.

Now the plants will stay outside till roughly the end of december. After that I will bring the pots inside. Once Inside they will slowly defrost, I will separate Tet pots from Dip pots, and then top dress the pots with alfalfa pellets, and slow release fertilizer. I won't start watering the plants till they break their dormancy, and then I will start mildly fertilizing them at about 50-75 PPM Nitrogen.

Now in this next picture you can definitely see the difference between my outside plants, and everything that was growing in the greenhouse.  The picture below was taken November 6th of this year.  As you can see, I got a solid 6 extra weeks of solid growth from my plants at the end of the season.

So once the pots are inside, they break dormancy... then what?  Well this depends on how much money you want to spend and when you want bloom among other factors. Be it, this is my first winter and I really dont know how much propane I will be using I personally would like to cap my supplemental heating bill at 500 gallons of propane.  That might sound like a lot, but it really isnt. Because I have seedlings inside, I will heat from November on.

So I can't really tell you what's best here... but I will tell you my plan.  I plan on keeping an average temperature of 60 degrees until Feb 1st.  At that point I will then increase my Temp to 65 degrees. On march 1st, I will then maintain 70 degrees to induce bloom In april. 

There are a few reasons why I am doing it this way... For starters, In late december the Daylength is an abysmal 9 hours and 19 minutes.  Which means I am only getting about 7-9 hours of solar gain, and the rest of the heating is on my dime.  So keeping the temp low during January allows me to keep the plants growing, and conserve energy. 

So at the end of february, a few things improve. Typically for my area exterior air temps start climbing,  Sun angle starts improving for better light distribution within the greenhouse, and day length is now 11 hours and 20 minutes. So now I am getting 11-12 hours of free heat, I am getting better solar gain within the greenhouse, the plants are getting better light, and a longer day for growth. So now is the time to kick them into GO mode! 

March will be a funny month, I suspect it will be like my October sort of. The air temps outside will be 40-55 but the sun angle and daylength will again improve as will the amount of solar radiation captured by the greenhouse.  This will help and hurt me. The helpful part will again be almost 13 hours of daylength at the end of the month, better sun angle, better light distribution in the greenhouse. The hurtful part? I will be in a quasi heat/cool cycle which is hard to manage. During the day, the greenhouse would easily exceed 100 degrees without power venting.  But at the same time, the air temp will still only be 40-55 degree which would cause wild temp swings if you just turned a vent fan on.  It also makes it hard to retain the heat you gain during the day because the Vents are temperature sensitive. and they need to be set at the highest opening temp because during the night the heater will be maintaining a 68-70 degree temperature.  But during the day you want the vents to start opening at almost the same temperature to keep the temperature from building up too quickly, causing the fans to kick on and start dumping cold air into the greenhouse.

Well if thats what march is like, what does april bring???  Well more of the same In my eyes. At some point in april the shade cloth will be put onto the greenhouse which will help us maintain a steady daytime temp. The overnight supplemental heating will be brought down to 60 since day time temps will be roughly that. And we hope for tons of bloom, while maintaining 70-75 degrees for the best pod set. We will then set our vents at our summer settings, as well as our swamp cooler. The goal is to maintain a temperature as close to 75 as possible for maximum growth, rebloom, and pod set/formation. 

So why not sooner/later?   Well in my eyes you could do this sooner for sure,  but you will be doing it with less light, less light distribution, and a much higher heating bill. I also believe because of  daylight hours you wont get as much bloom, nor as many seeds.  

Later? Well you could, but then you start dealing with higher daytime temperatures, you also would start backing up into your normal season... and I rather get my seed in June so I can get a crop planted in July.  Anything past that point in my eyes isnt worth all the extra effort of the greenhouse. Also, I would want the plants to be finished with seed as soon as possible so I can divide the plants out of the pots for fall selling, or donation.  While giving the divisions plenty of time to grow, rest, multiply before november. 

How many seeds do you sow?

Seeds, Seeds, Seeds...

So the 2016 summer season was a productive one for our gardens.

We produced 14,000+ seeds, which from hearing what others made was impressive. We had a season long drought, we had many days over 85+ even full weeks 90+.  Even more impressive, we don't have a single established clump in the whole garden.

90% of the plants bloomed for the first time this year.

So how did I do it?

Nothing special, I irrigated heavily,  And not so much my choice but rather what I had to do.. I pollinated from 6am to 8am five days out of the week (Damn real job)

That's It.

So did I plant all 14,000 seeds?  Heck No.

I planned for 2500, But had excess capacity to about 3700-3800. We used all of it.

So we here's my system for this years crop-  I am using a Landmark Plastics Watermatic Tray

I am using 4.5 x 4.5 x 4.88D Square pots, the trays hold 15 of these. We plant 5 seeds max per pot, giving us a capacity of 75 seeds per tray.  We planted 50 trays, 750 pots. Some pots got less then 5 seeds.

Using all the space we have!

So what do I do after they start growing?  Well depending on the weather, They will stay in the greenhouse till Early to Mid April. Then we will plant them and maintain them throughout summer.  We got spotty first year bloom this year, with a very bad spring with a record late freeze on April 26-27th. We don't rely on first year bloom yet. 

My next blog entry will go into greater detail on how we plan to try and be competitive with southern growers, and get first year blooms. 

This Picture is from May 29th. This year was a learning year.  We won't be planting that late this coming spring. 

Cats Cats Cats Everywhere!

Well, I figured you guys might want to know a bit more about the crazy behind the Greenhouse...

Here is my lovely wife of 3 years.. Shayna.. holding a cat that might or might not be skinnier then logan.

Here is me, with my Cat "helen"

So we have 6 cats,  yes six.. we had a HUGE mouse problem.. we still have it.. plus 6 cats.

Here Is Cali, doing her favorite thing.. pretending to be furniture. 

Cali was a rescue, she was given to me by a good friend, and well... was sick. We feared she wouldn't make it, after a few weeks of playing wack a mole with what it could be, we found out she had a cyst obstructing her throat and thats why she wasn't growing. We had it removed, and now shes the biggest cat out of them all. 

Our next kitty Is Stella. We got her from a local Cat rescue- 

Our Next Kitty is Bella- We rescued her from a friend that rescued her.

Next up is logan, we rescued him from the same place we got Stella, Me and my wife walked into a pet store, with maybe a bit too much to drink beforehand... My wife saw logan.. and HAD to have him. 2 weeks before we got married to boot! 

Might I add.. he LOVES to be touching you.. at all times.

Next up is Lola, she is our only Non-rescue. She is a F5 Pure Bred Bengal cat.  My wife adores and dotes on this cat. 

And last. but not least is the most saved Kitty of them all... "Helen"  Helen was posted to a facebook group for blind cats as needing an emergency home.  Without even asking my wife I emailed the place and said we would take her.  Well the wife wasn't happy, and well... Helen was in North Carolina.  Helen is Blind, and has a dislocated tail.. so we think she lost her vision from trauma. She is a huge brat, the only cat that begs for people food.. and is insanely smart almost to diabolical levels.

To be able to eat in peace, I have to sit her in my lap and feed her.. Not joking. 

She can scale out dining room chairs.. How she figured this out, we dont know.

Rust Rust Rust everywhere!

Rust, Not much of an issue for a northern garden right?  We get a reset button each year... 

Enter the evil overwintering machine we call a greenhouse... Cue the scary music... Hide the kids, maybe the cats... leave the dog...

So yeah, thats what its like talking to someone about rust that has a greenhouse.. So Let me start this off by saying this.

I PURPOSELY PUT RUST IN MY GREENHOUSE.

Don't do this.  

Why Did I? 

Well, I figure at some point, no matter what I do, and how I do it... I will get rust in my greenhouse. So I did this to figure out a plan of eradication or control.. testing different products, figuring out what does and doesnt work.  

Let me start this by saying, I had a failsafe here.  Everything is coming out of the greenhouse on Nov. 5th and getting chilled outside till late december, anything Evergreen that I won't be doing that too will have all the foliage removed and dipped, with 2 follow up systemic sprays. I knew I had an Out... The greenhouse will be washed down with a bleach solution, and contact fungicide to prevent any rambo like spores from sticking around. 

I also did this because I have heard about 15 different ways to deal with rust. And realistically everyone will have their pet choice of product for control. 

So what's my plan? Well Lets go over the chemicals I have and use.

Heritage 50DF-  Class 11 Fungicide, Systemic, 50% Dry flowable

(4oz version is now discontinued, get it while you can, next size is 1 lb)

Cabrio EG- Class 11 Fungicide, Systemic, Dry Flowable

Daconil- Contact Fungicide, liquid concentrate

Daconil Ultrex- Contact Fungicide, Dry Flowable

Green Magic- Contact Soap, Proven to remove spore by contact

Dithane- Contact Fungicide 

Myclo 20ew- Contact Fungicide

So those are all the fungicides I own that I have used to combat rust. I am going to share with you my most effective means of rust eradication.

First things first, Spray schedule.  4 to 5 days MAX. Do not spray before or after.  

All products other then green magic need a STICKER, half teaspoon of REGULAR DAWN works just fine. 

I spray two mixtures. 

Mixture #1 Heritage and Daconil Ultrex- .3 Oz of Heritage to 4 gallons, 2 teaspoons of Daconil Ultrex to 4 gallons. 

Mixture #2- Cabrio and Dithane- 2 teaspoons Cabrio, 2 teaspoons Dithane

I also use green magic and or daconil liquid as a separate spray if I feel that I am effectively killing the rust in place of a mixture spray. 

Spray #3 Green magic Or Daconil-  Daconil Liquid concentrate 2oz per 4 gallons, Green magic 16oz per 4 gallons.

So I use Mixture one to start, 4-5 days after I rotate to mixture two, I do this on 4-5 day intervals for as long as needed. Once Rust is no longer visible, I will Spray like this Mixture one, then Green Magic by itself 4-5 days after, then Mixture two 4-5 days after.  So you are effectively spacing the fungicide use to 8-10 days.  I ELIMINATED rust in my greenhouse doing this.  I did this for 4 weeks,  All of september and the first week of october. I then stopped spraying. In 4 weeks in what would be the most favorable rust conditions, I have No rust, No spores, just spore scars. 

YOU MUST COAT THE WHOLE PLANT.. DO NOT LEAVE A CM OF THAT PLANT DRY.

This is only My experience.

I feel confident, If I get rust, I can get rid of rust.  I will also attempt to obtain "Headline" but its cost is about 800 dollars for 2.5 gallons. And I have no idea what Id do with 2.5 gallons. The active ingredient in cabrio is the same as in headline. 

Don't spray Myclo without a mask, dont re-enter for a long time. I dont suggest its use for these reasons, Its nasty. 

I will also say this Daconil Ultrex is WAY more effective as a contact fungicide then regular daconil. 

I will still strive to keep rust out of the greenhouse, I will trim foliage, dip plants, and proactively spray new arrivals no matter where they come from with systemics. Just because you can get rid of it, or feel you can doesnt mean you should. 

I also dont recommend this for spraying in your garden, the mixture of fungicides, chemicals, and cost are all big reasons to keep this method small scale, this is also probably a big reason why big commercial gardens dont use these chemicals or methods.  The cost per 4 gallons of spray is pretty low Heritage is the most expensive out of all of them (Roughly 7 dollars per 4 gallons, or .3oz per 4 gallons).. But the buy in cost of the daconil ultrex and cabrio can be off putting. Both those products will last you nearly forever.

Now you all know I'm crazy... I put rust in my greenhouse on purpose.. I didnt wait for it. 

Observations, Ideas, and Thoughts

Well It's built, I added the extension...  Now what? 

Well first things first, I would suggest you take a tour of someone else's greenhouse, and ask questions.  It was my two visits to Rich howard, Of CT Daylily that really gave me a foundation of how I wanted to outfit the greenhouse, bench depth, heights, and so on. Also Pest management, Rust management, Crop management etc etc etc.

The following is my advice and Ideas, It is in no way correct, absolute, or just not stupid.. But these are my ideas, and thoughts for dealing with  these Items.

Crop management

 Well My crop is Daylilies, and Daylily Seedlings.  My greenhouse has capacity for about 250 pots, and (45) 10x20 trays which will give me about a capacity for 3600-3700 seedlings. 

We only really planned on 150 pots in the greenhouse, and 2500 seedlings. Well some fall orders came in small, and my wife wanted to work with some toothy stuff so I brought in a few toothy plants, and then we picked up a few pots from lilyhemmer, late orders from florida... and boom... 250 pots. Easy! 

All the pots I have are Trade size 2 gallon to True 3 gallon pots. The bigger the plant, the bigger the pot.. but at the same time I have to be conservative with pot size due to space limitations. 

Now onto my seedling trays...  This will be a great departure from how I did it last year... And I thank Dave Mussar of Hillside Daylilies for sharing pictures of how he planted his seeds.  I took his method and modified it a bit.  

But first.. how it started last year... I rolled my car out of the garage.. and grew them all underlights, In 18, 32, and 38 cell trays. I planted roughly 2000 seeds last year.  About 1500 made it into the ground. This worked, and worked well... But isnt ideal... I had to combat high humidity (the walls would sweat)  High heat (I would blow the heat into my house) High electric bill (about 200/month extra) Water everywhere (as you can see) And my cars had to stay in the cold! 

My method now...

These are 10x20 Landmark plastic watermatic trays, they hold 15 4.5 x 4.5 x 4.88 square pots, each pot will get 5 seeds each.  So instead of planting 32 per tray, I will be planting 75 per tray. The added benefit here is the added depth, the problem I had and saw with most seedling trays Is they are 2.5-3.5 inches deep.. not much room for root growth.  I saw the roots on dave's seedlings and instantly knew mine needed the extra depth. 

Fertilizing in the greenhouse!

This is pretty simple, I use a fertilizer with a great Macro and Micro nutrient package since most potting mixes are devoid of much nutrients and Major minors.  I use Plantex 12-2-14 Cal Mag + P , I also use Alfalfa pellets, and Compost teas along with worm castings in the pots. Remember that pots and peat/bark based medias wash out very quickly unlike ground planted plants... So Its not uncommon to fertilize 4-6 times a year rather than 1 or 2. Extended release fertilizer is also a great idea here, and I will be adding it when I add my alfalfa pellets this year.  I also will use a Foliar spray of Grow More Jump Start. I will also Foliar spray Iron, Humic acids, and seaweed extract on occasion. 

Pest management in the greenhouse

Aphids, Fungus Gnats, Spider Mites, Thrips...

Whats do you do?  Chemical or organic? 

Well, let me be the first to tell you, I hate spraying chemicals... Just do.  But this isnt the place where you can get away with be 100% organic. Not just yet.. we are getting there. There are many biological controls availible to us...

Fungus Gnats- Yellow sticky tape? Nah... These are easy to get rid of.  At least in my eyes.  I use a product called Ecological Labs Microbe Lift Mosquito Control.  This product is simple.. drench the soil with it, within the product it contains millions of Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis bacteria which are a biological larvicide. The bacteria eats the fungus gnat larvae.. and they never make it out of the soil. Easy problem to solve.  Mosquito dunks also have this bacteria but I find the liquid suspension of this product to be easier to use.  

Spider Mites-  These things are evil and will absolutely grow to wild population amounts in a greenhouse. Solutions?  Well You can eliminate or control them. Organic methods will only be controls.  Neem oil, and Organocide are sprays you can use to knock them back.. But these will not kill them all, and wont kill the eggs at all. BotaniGard® MAXX Is another oil based product listed as a control. 

Predator control-  You can use Feltiella acarisuga or Stethorus punctillum, Both are expensive, and effective.  And would need 1 to 2 applications per year to keep an established colonie. Please note... once the spider mite population is gone, so are your predators. 

Chemical control-  I use Avid 015ec miticide, quick knock down, will not kill the eggs so spraying in a 4-7 day interval for 4-6 weeks will be needed.  This will also kill and beneficials you have in the greenhouse. Wear a mask when spraying. 

Ovation SC- I dont use use this product, this product will kill the eggs. Its also very expensive. Bill Waldrop uses it with success, so It was worth an honorable mention here.

Aphids- Neem oil, Organocide, and Insecticidal soap, These are easy to control with organic methods. 

Thrips-  Amblyseius cucumeris is a great control for a biologic, Inexpensive also.

Chemical control-  Most over the counter systemics will kill and control thrips,  these sprays are also the ones being questioned in the search for the reason of Bee colony collapse disorder. I wont recommend, nor link any for this reason. I would stick to the organic method of control here.  

There are more pests you will come in contact with I'm sure, Neem oil, and other oil sprays do need to be used as directed, and not oversprayed they will burn your plants if over applied. I will also IMPLORE you to research the chemicals you use, wear eye, lung, skin protect and KNOW THE REI of the chemical you are using. Remember you are spraying within an enclosed environment, dont mess around with your health here. 

I will start a separate entry for rust.  There is a bit of ground to cover there. 

Building a Greenhouse Part #2

Ok, so you still want to do this? Well here I will go into some detail of the actual construction.. Enough of this planning stuff. 

So for starters You need to excavate and lay down your base for you greenhouse,  I selected to build a concrete pad for my greenhouse.

I excavated a base roughly 15 feet wide by 30 feet long. I used a small wheeled bobcat for this, You can rent them so 250 a day at a local rental place, I luckily had access to one. This saved on the cost. 

I laid a 4inch base of 2a modified stone, and watered it, then compacted it.

I then rented a "ditch witch"  Since I was bringing water and electric to the greenhouse I had to trench below the frostline for the water, and the deeper you go, the more flexible your electric line options are. I ran a 3/4 pex line, and 12/3 UF rated wire bare no conduit (check your local codes) 

So I trenched 36 inches deep from my house to the one corner of the pad

After I trenched everything, I ran the lines, backfilled the dirt in, and installed a treated lumber post to run the utilities up. 

After this, Its time to build your forms... This is a pretty simple task, using 2x4s, 2 foot steel ground stakes, and a level you build big ass square where you want you pad over your compacted base, you level it, and make sure its very well secured so it doesnt move while you pour your concrete.

Next would be your concrete delivery... If you are wondering how much concrete you need just type in "concrete calculator" in google and you will get a few to help you.  This job required 5 yards of concrete, I selected 4000psi with fiber reinforcement. I did not steel reinforce this pad due to its very low weight load.

When pouring such a big pad, it is helpful to select a day in the 70's and not so sunny.  We poured this pad in late august, on a very sunny day, and it was 96 degrees out.  Dont do that, just dont.  

So now onto the fun part!  Building the greenhouse.  This will be a pretty short section, since everyones greenhouse will be different. Mine took 2 days to build, I had help for one of those days (Thanks Pauly!)... I would suggest a helping hand at all times, it'll really speeds things up.  Most of my greenhouse frame was "click together" so it was pretty easy.  All the bracing bolted together and it was a well designed system.  I will share a few pictures below.

Whoa... Your greenhouse Grew?  Yup... remember that part where I told you to write a size down on paper, then throw it away?  Yeah, listen to me.  In the back of my head, I knew this would happen, thats why I oversized the concrete pad, and bought a expandable system.  About three weeks after building the greenhouse I realized, I would need the extension, and need it now.  I purchased a 6 x 13 extension and added it on, Since I was familiar with the system, and the frame was a click system, the addition took 3 hours.

The greenhouse is now 13w x 26L

Also at the same time, as if building a greenhouse wasn't enough, My wife decided she wanted a Pergola, I wanted a firepit.. So I designed, and built a new patio, and pergola at the same time while building the greenhouse. I dont suggest you do this either lol. 

So there it is... Lots of planning...  I completed everything over the course of 2 weeks from excavation, to finished product, both greenhouse and pergola.  And yes I work a full time job also. 

Till next time!