I am so excited! My greenhouse structure is finally finished. I thought I would just share a little about the process, I’ll include the YouTube links for each step as we go along, just in case you missed them.

I didn’t always like to garden, especially when I came to Alaska. I grew up in Southern Utah, and gardening down there was quite a bit different than here in Alaska. First and foremost is the water. In Utah, it’s a high mountain desert. In Alaska there’s usually plenty of water. In Utah the ground is clay and holds the water for days. In Alaska, the ground is peat and sand, and drains the water away very quickly.

The types of plants that grow are different for each location. Weirdly enough, the last frost in the spring happens about the same time of year. Here in Alaska we plant basically around Memorial Day. Down in Utah it is the same. The difference is the end of summer. Here in Alaska we get a killing frost around the end of August, in Utah it’s quite a bit later, usually end of September or first of October. That means they can grow plants a lot longer than we can.

But, over the years, I have finally adjusted my thinking process and have been successful most years with our garden. I have even learned that I really do enjoy gardening quite a bit. But, with the economy and Alaska being somewhat cut off from the lower 48, there has always been the possibility of being somewhat cut off from fresh items if there’s a hiccup in trucking or the barges. Thus the desire for a greenhouse to grow a bigger variety of food.

My husband and I have talked for years about building a greenhouse. About 15 years or so ago my husband found some big windows for sale, on Craig’s List I believe, and so he bought quite a number of them. There were probably 25 windows. I was excited! But then life continued and we just didn’t have the money to start building anything.

Then about 4 years ago, we hired a man to come drive pilings into our swamp for the greenhouse. We put it at the edge of our swamp because it would get the most sunlight there, but didn’t want to put in a whole foundation because there’s water in that area all summer long. But the pilings were all that happened.

I did start to wonder if we would ever get the greenhouse built. I even threatened to sell the windows at one point because I didn’t think it would ever get done. I’m glad I didn’t actually do that!

Last summer when we were cutting down dead trees around our property for firewood, my husband started saving the biggest ones, hoping to saw them up for lumber. We hauled quite a number of them closer to the house. This past winter he purchased a chainsaw mill to start cutting up the wood, but found that to be very slow and tedious.

This spring he was talking to a friend about the greenhouse and chainsaw mill, and the friend offered to let us borrow his portable sawmill. My husband jumped at the chance, and thus the means were provided to get the building project started.

My son, before he left on his mission, welded up the pilings that we had placed 4 years ago, to make them level and then add brackets for the beams that would support the floor. I didn’t get a video of that unfortunately. We milled all the wood from the logs off our property. You can watch that process on YouTube here.

And then we built the structure. It is a timber frame structure, and mostly just the posts, beams, and windows. We had to build the structure based upon the windows we had, so that dictated the layout, and where there would be actual wall. You can see the timber frame process here.

We then cut more wood so that we could build the trusses for the roof. The walls were all 6×6’s 8 feet long, but we had to save the largest logs for the roof as they had to be 2×8’s that were 8 feet long as well. We then assembled the trusses. You can see that quick process here.

The last step in the framing process was getting the trusses set. We have an extendable reach forklift which made setting the trusses easier, but the trusses weren’t very heavy either, mostly just awkward because of the size. You can watch us set the trusses here.

The last step for the structure was getting the plywood on, getting the polycarbonate roofing on, and the windows put in. The plywood we did in several stages, some with the framing, and some just before the roofing installation. The roofing, once we got going, was very quick, only a couple hours and it was finished. The windows took several hours to install over a couple of days, and several hours to clean. You can watch that process here.

I am beyond excited to have this greenhouse done. I took my plants outside and they seem to be quite a bit happier, and have finally started to grow again since being in the sunshine. My counter top isn’t the best place for my plants.

My husband is in the process of building greenhouse beds for me. I will share that process when I get it finished up. Then we will get them filled with soil. I probably won’t be actually planting into the soil this year, or not a ton. My husband wasn’t sure he’d have time to do the beds this year, so I had already planted everything into large pots. I am so grateful for not only my husband’s time, but for my son-in-law just jumping in and helping out, both my sons help in the various stages, and my daughters help with the videos once in a while.