The plans are forming!

Well for those of you that have followed me for a while, will have seen that most of my growing space is within a sorry looking, recycles and self built greenhouse i have, tiny by most terms at 8x14 feet its my safe place and given the rubbish weather we have in the UK the best opportunity to grow some decent fruit and veg.

---

My greenhouse as it stands

---

This has given me a good 5 years of grow space but this year it's suffered a fair bit of damage which brings round an opportunity to repair, rebuild and improve upon it.

I need to do it on the Cheap… as recent events have put our family in a tough place, by no means dire and i'm in no way complaining as were incredibly lucky compared to others but it means disposable income is hard to find and justifying an expensive greenhouse build would be hard.

The plan!

I need to swiftly replace the greenhouse so that minimal disruption is caused to the growing season. So im going to get it all designed premade by myself and book a couple of days off to tear down the old and replace with the new.

The design

Im going to create a Walipini or sunken greenhouse, one of the issues i face is strong winds up 100kph+ when the storms roll in, so by lowering the height i can hopefully shield it from some of these winds that are causing damage.

Walipini example

Source

---

Benefits of a Walipini

• Protected from the wind due to low height
• Minimal materials required due to height saving
• Increased thermal regulation due to using the earth as a heat sink.
• Unobtrusive and easily hidden due to its low height

The Design Phase

So this is currently where I’m at modeling away in Fusion 360…

Rough model still got lots to do/change

---

One of the reasons for modeling this first is to really get the design nailed, and this should help me with the following;

• Avoid any potential errors in layout.
• Accurately estimate materials to avoid wastage and keep it cheap.
• Create a solid set of plans to get it pre built and ready to erect.

If anyone wants the files once there done let me know i'll happily release them to the world, and hopefully they will scale easily to other dimensions as required.

Other big changes

Well some of these were started in the current greenhouse but i’ve held off finishing through lack of time or issues with the greenhouse thats standing. The following things are going to be designed in so start with and price factored in to allow rapid completion

• Airtight as possible other than designed ventilation trying to keep the temperature up in winter in a nightmare and i want to grow year round
• Automation of watering/ventilation completed
• Increase in both rain water/solar collection
• Dedicated work space for potting up and tinkering to keep the GH clean and organised

Also the soil excavated will be used to fill some more raised beds i plan to build so that i'll be able to increase my grow space further and increase my self reliance even more :)

Self Watering System to finish

How am i going to fund it?

Well i haven't got that far into my plan yet… once i have a rough idea of costs i can starting saving money here and there. I’ll be looking for ways to bring some money in to help fund it with things i can make/do to help it to completion.

There's always STEEM

I invested some money in Steem while its cheap with a hope to cash it back out down the line to help fund some of this, I’m not sure how that will pan out but any SBD i build from posts im going to hold onto as a means help this along

Worse case if the price stays low or drops further ill power it up and delegate to some of the great communities i find myself in..

GHSC Discord

Proud member of the Global Homestead Collective

Natural Medicine Discord

Upvotes, resteems and follows are great and truly appreciated. However a meaningful comment is worth so much more, don’t be afraid to say hello.

Until next time, all the best

DigitalDan