Finally, Some Significant Progress

A lot has happened, and I’m sorry to say that I haven’t been keeping this blog updated accordingly. I was busy this summer learning golf, tending my outdoor vegetable garden, and training our white German Shepherd puppy, Ziva. Progress on my greenhouse was stalled for a number of reasons, one of them being lack of a decision on how to heat the greenhouse. Another was the questionable wisdom of investing a lot of money in the greenhouse when our funds were limited. And then, there was the fact that I didn’t really need the greenhouse to be functioning until the summer growing season was over.

Now, a lot of questions have been resolved, and much progress has been made.

I finally decided to heat the greenhouse with liquid propane (LP) gas. During the summer, we had the LP tank that is buried in our lawn refilled. We learned that we had not used very much gas over the period of about a year, through use of our gas fireplace and gas grill. We also would use LP gas to run our emergency generator, but we had no such emergencies since we moved into our new house more than a year ago. The refill amounted to only 154 gallons, roughly half of the tank’s capacity. Since we are obligated to pay for at least one full tank refill each year, as a condition of our “free” lease of the tank, we would have to pay for more than 150 gallons of gas each year that we would not use. Therefore, approximately, the first 150 gallons of LP gas that we would use to heat the greenhouse each year would be “free,” since we would have to pay for that gas anyway. This, added to the consideration that heating with LP gas would be more efficient than using electric power for heating the greenhouse, confirmed the decision to heat with LP gas.

The financial questions apparently have been resolved with the likelihood that I will soon begin part-time work with the agency I retired from in January 2007. The additional income will mean that I don’t have to pinch pennies getting my greenhouse set up properly. In anticipation of the added income, I went ahead and had an electrical contractor run electric lines to the greenhouse and neighboring shed, and had the LP gas contractor/supplier run a gas line to the greenhouse. The lines were initially just stubs, but will be hooked up to the proper equipment and sockets once the greenhouse construction is completed.

I also purchased a gas heater that will be hooked up by the gas contractor when the greenhouse construction is completed.

Another decision I made was to purchase tomato and cucumber seeds for use in the greenhouse this winter.

I’ll provide separate entries to discuss the details of the electric, gas, and vegetable seed issues, as well as my efforts (an those of others) to erect the greenhouse.