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Finishing Greenhouse Framing & How We Use Solar Power

In the morning I got right to work on the greenhouse framing again. I hope to preserve our garden vegetables longer in the season. We use solar power for most of our energy needs on our off grid homestead from lights to cooking.

 

I am putting up the rafters today. It is slow going because I am using scrap lumber and have to sort though the wood pile for each and every piece I need. But I managed to get three rafters up in the air today. At least it is starting to look complete now.

 

I also got to work on the door framing. This strengthens up the entire structure and holds it all together. I will later make a door when I find some more wood.

 

Finishing the framing of the greenhouse

Finishing the framing of the greenhouse

 

Framing in the greenhouse roof

 

Framing in the greenhouse roof

 

Later on I built two 11 foot long by 1 foot wide shelves to hold all of our garden vegetable plants. I saved as much as I could from the main garden after the frost kiled most everything else. Rather than try to cover the plants every night and uncover them in the morning it was easier to dig up the remaining plants and put them into pots.

 

 

 

I conveniently have some very long, heavy 2x12 lumber that I got for free recently which made the perfect shelves for our greenhouse. I used scrap boards for feet and supports for the shelving.

 

Then I hauled all of our potted plants over to our new greenhouse and put them onto the shelves. We have tomato plants which are bearing fruit as well as various chili plants I saved from the killing frost. We also have a few bell pepper plants and three sweet potato vines in pots. We have some corn which may or may not make it through the season. And we have some potted herbs. Plus the entire greenhouse is surrounding our raised herb garden.

 

Putting our garden plants in our new greenhouse

Putting our garden plants in our new greenhouse

 

We hope to be able to extend the growing season of our herbs and some vegetables as well as grow some cold weather crops such as spinach, kale, lettuce and cabbage.

 

For now, until I can afford the proper plastic sheeting, I will use tarps to cover the entire greenhouse on cold nights. But at least now all of our garden plants are in one place and will be so much easier to protect. The heat mass of all these pots will also help retain warmth though the night.

 

We use the power of the sun for most of our needs these days. During the day I use my SunJack and SunTactics folding solar panels to charge up LED lights and our cell phones. These I later use in the evening to light up our tiny house for free.

 

Charging LED lights with solar panels for later evening use in our tiny house

Charging LED lights with solar panels for later evening use in our tiny house

 

 

We have three solar panels out in front of the house which power our fridge and charge up our laptop during the day. At night we can run things like laptops and phones off their own battery power.

 

We also use the GoSun solar cooker to cook up amazing meals for free. The sun does all the work, costing us nothing and turns out great tasting slow cooked meals. You cannot really over cook with the GoSun solar cooker so you can just set it and forget it.

 

Using our GoSun solar cooker to prepare hot meals

Using our GoSun solar cooker to prepare hot meals

 

Later our meal turned out so good. It sure felt good to eat a solar cooked meal after a long day of work.

 

Solar cooked meal to top off an awesome day

Solar cooked meal to top off an awesome day

 

You can watch today's video here: Finishing Greenhouse Framing & How We Use Solar Power

 

While you are over there please subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow our daily videos as we strive to become self sufficient and off the grid on a budget.





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Troy Reid

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