Wow, so much has happened here on the farm since I wrote last. Over the past few weeks we have been working on the farm irrigation pump-house, digging trenches and laying pipe for our irrigation mainline and the waterlines to the farm centre & greenhouse. As well as constructing grey water pits for the house and wash station, and getting ready to construct a road to and around the Farm Centre. Oh, and ploughing and tilling the new fields and cover cropping them. We also made a quick trip out to Yarrow Ecovillage (Chilliwack), to check on and weed our garlic (which is doing marvellous by the way!) and visit our friends there. Not to mention several other small projects around the farm and house. (whew!).
So, in between all of this, we still managed to work on setting in the cement foundations for the greenhouse. This was a very,
very painstaking process. But, by recycling the previous owners cement foundations we managed to save quite a bit of money & work, which we definitely paid for in time needed to properly line and level them (isn't that always the way!). It was a learning process that took a couple of days, but by mid project we had found our stride and devised an ingenious method that worked quite well. Too bad we'll never need it again lol.
It took approx 5 x 7hr days to set in all the foundations, and only one day to actually erect the majority of the skeleton lol. With the ribs up and the snow load/end wall braces on, its looking like quite the structure!
Next phase is to finish putting together the skeleton (cross beams, base boards & wire locks, cat walk, end wall struts) then its on to installing the organs of the structure (the industrial fans, doors, propane heater, roll-up side mechanics). Then at long last, the skin (plastic) will go on. And our living, breathing greenhouse will come to life!
More updates to come, so stay tuned :)
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| Grading the trench for the Wash Station grey water pit. |
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| Filling the grey water pit with river rock (after the pipe and barrel have been set up). |
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| Nev posing proudly on his first ever constructed grey water pit! |
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| Nevin and Carl (our excavator guy) discussing the water line for the Farm Centre. |
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| Feels good to finally be breaking ground (ploughing the first field). |
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| Nevin tilling the vegetable field with our bad ass tiller. Aptly named: The Beast :) |
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| Our first field is tilled and ready for cover cropping. Approx 2.5 acres. |
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| Nevin raking in our cover crop seeds with the S-tine cultivator (love that thing!) |
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| A great photo of Nev on Big Red :) |
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| Mom's been working hard this past week clearing last year's Greater Burdock our of the fields around the farm centre. Great Job Mom! <3 |
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| Setting in the greehouse foundations was a tedious chore, to be sure. But well worth the effort to get it right the first time! |
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| And up go the greenhouse ribs! |
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| About halfway done! |
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| Easily done with just two people! Even though it was recommended to have 4-6 people on hand for the building of the structure. lol. |
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| Everything is lining up nicely! |
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| Almost done the Ribs! |
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| Tada! Ribs are up. It's starting to look like a greenhouse now :) |
Nice job
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