Greenhouse Planning

Sorry for the long silence. It turns out that the process of unpacking and getting settled in is like a million times more work when you know you aren't going to move again OR make any more additions or changes to the house. Now if something doesn't fit or doesn't work in a space we have to solve that problem or get rid of the thing. We've gotten rid of a lot of things, and also replaced a bunch of stuff with things that work better.

That sounds kind of vague, but it's happened all over the house. Our food processor was too large, so we gave it away and are getting a new one. I have four sewing machines, which is too many to fi in the space of my studio/office, so I'm in the process of deciding which ones have to go.

Anyway, now that it's getting to be spring, I've started turning my attention to the landscape, since the unpacking/settling in isn't going to get done in my lifetime, I guess. The gardeners came a couple weeks ago and beat the front yard into submission, just in time for the magnolia to bloom.

That tree just looks amazing.

I have two main priorities for the yard. The first is to get the tank hooked back up and working again, so we have irrigation. Look at him looking all sad under the deck:

I'm going to have to crawl under there and do some digging, and we want to move the pressure pump outside, which means finding a new pressure pump that can handle being outside (see, this is how it has been). So today we kind of talked through our plan for where the various parts would go and I committed to spending what looks like a few weeks under the deck with the mini-shovel digging around.

Yay?

Also we laid out the greenhouse. I'd been willing to put off building the greenhouse but we've had a series of wind storms that keep blowing my orchids around the yard, and Noel finally was just like, hey, maybe we should just put in the greenhouse. So we laid it out and I've asked the company for a quote to get the process started, and here we go. Here's the layout:

The size I liked the feel of is 10 feet deep by 16 feet long. We have room for a couple patio spaces on either side: one covered one by the chicken shed, and one open one near the deck.

Initially we laid it out as 12 feet deep, but it felt too massive. I don't want the greenhouse to take over the yard, and it's not like I need to buy every plant in the world.

This is the view from upstairs. The board on the end is about 12 feet long, so you can see how much larger the greenhouse would be. Conventional wisdom says you should make your greenhouse as big as you can fit and afford, but I have a feeling I would dislike having a massive greenhouse in the garden taking up outdoor space. Most of my orchids actually grow outside in California, so outdoor space is also important to me.

Now I need to really lay out the pathways and hire a stone person to construct them.

posted by ayse on 03/01/20