Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Claudia & Linda" <dragonhill2@netzero.net>]

A tip for building greenhouses:  I built a greenhouse attached to the south
side of my house this spring using the wire panels called "hog panels" or
"cattle panels" and available at most farm stores.  They are usually 16'
long and you can get them in heights varying from 3' to 5'.  They're
flexible so you can bend them into a hoop shape for hoop houses.   To make
my greenhouse I arched these panels out from my house, nailing one end of
them to plates I attached to the house and the other end to railroad ties.
I covered them with Visqueen plastic sandwiched between lathing.  When the
weather got hot I removed the plastic on the sides.  The plastic on the wire
panels, I had attached so I could just roll it up to allow south breezes to
enter but still keep the top shaded.  Then I planted cucumbers and melons
and let them grow up over the wire panels for the summer.  This has worked
wonderfully to shade and cool this side of the house and make a nice area
for starting fall seedling.  Total cost of an approximately 14x12 solar
greenhouse was about $105.  I haven't gone thru a winter with this
greenhouse yet but if I need to, there's plenty of room to put a small,
woodburning stove in it and I left a way to vent such a stove just in case.
Also, this greenhouse is built over two of the house window; in the early
spring we used it quite satisfactorily to warm the house during the day.

Claudia