2010)
Shade cloth added to dampen the AZ sun and heat.
It doesn't take huge pots to grow cukes and tomatoes.
July 1, 2010 - Tomatoes growing.
July 17, 2010 - The greenhouse keeps us in cukes.
July 17, 2010 - Dozens of green tomatoes.
July 30, 2010 - The first of the red tomatos.
July 30, 2010 - It's a jungle in there, trying to grow out the door.

A FEW NOTES:

Breaking news - Arizona just passed a medical marijuana law. Could be a good time to have a greehouse. Stay tuned! Not much will happen until after April, 2011. Now back to regular programming.

I estimate I got about $250 - $300 worth of tomatoes and cucumbers (at grocery store prices) in this first season. Not a bad one-year return on a $1,000 investment. We ate 'em all except a few cukes given to neighbors.

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We're at elevation 6830 in Arizona's White Mountains,15 miles east of Show Low, Arizona, not far from US 60. Temps range from 10 below to the low 90s. Our 1.6 acres of Pinyon-Juniper is in east-central Arizona about 180 miles NE of Phoenix and 120 miles SE of Flagstaff. New Mexico is about 40 miles west of us. We nearly border the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.

Our growing season is about the same as St. Paul, MN. You can't plant anything outside until the last week of May and freeze-out is right around October 1.

Due to the cold nights at this elevation in the high desert, the USDA says you can't grow cucumbers here - one of the reasons for the greenhouse. Also, hail, strong sun, wind, lack of rain, insects, blight and rabbits are other problems the little greenhouse is meant to avoid. I haven't heated it yet but do have the means (long extension cord and a milkhouse heater). Considering power outages, that's probably not feasible.

I thought I could build this thing for a few hundred. It ended up right at a grand. Framing was cheap until I started buying the flat stuff, ridgid clear roofing, siding, flooring.

I hauled all of the building materials in our Ford Explorer, with all the doors closed.

I just set four concrete blocks on the ground for the foundation, nothing poured. I wish I would have done this different but the thing is rock solid, even in our 70-MPH winds this spring. We don't get a lot of ground frost and I do worry about it sinking during monsoon rains or soft spring snow-melt conditions. So far, so good.

I had 4 cukes and 12 maters going in there. Room left over to have a little table/workbench. I hung some sections of field fence on the inside walls for the plants to climb on.

I wish I had set the shelves lower, the plants hit the roof.

The greenhouse is 6x8, 8-feet tall at the front and 6-feet tall at the back. I built the frames for the sides and top in the garage, they are screwed together in case I ever want to move the thing. I could give some advice but no plans for a thing like this. If I had plans they would have been erased so much you couldn't read them anyway. There was a lot of measuring twice and cutting four times! And then going to buy another 2 X 6.

See you later! Be careful out there!

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--NOVEMBER 2010 UPDATE-- Poke around a little. Check back now and then for new stuff. If you have something of your own that might be neat to post somewhere on Midwestweb.com, let me know.

--NOVEMBER 2010 UPDATE--

Poke around a little. Check back now and then for new stuff. If you have something of your own that might be neat to post somewhere on Midwestweb.com, let me know.