Playing Catch Up–Barn Construction

I can’t believe that it’s’ been almost 4 weeks since I last posted to the blog.

		Barn Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Building during the Christmas holiday threw some delivery set-backs into the mix that we hadn’t counted on. As of right now, the barn is about 98% done. The builders have to put up the gutter on the left side and the metal above the greenhouse on the shared wall (where the greenhouse connects to the side of the barn). We put up the last of the insulated panels on the inside but have to finish insulating the ceiling next spring (after the electrician finishes his work).

The electrician was delayed in finishing the job because the builder had not put the metal on the barn yet and he needed the metal in order to mount his electrical boxes to it. I’m not sure if it’s typical of all contractors to promise you a certain completion date and then they don’t hit it…again and again and again. It was very frustrating. The builder felt sure he’d be done by Christmas…now it’s looking like it will be January 9th for everything to be finished.

Our Amish builder built the wooden barn doors for us and we love them. Come spring we’ll get a coat of paint on them. All of the electrical is done for the barn. Before he put the breaker box inside the barn, we had already made the decision to go from a 100 amp service to a 200 amp service. Due to some of the amperages of current and future items we want, it only made sense to do it now before the whole thing was installed. What that did affect though was getting an excavator to come back out and dig another trench from the pole to the barn. I think the increase in cost was minimal in comparison  to having it done down the road, when everything would have to be changed out. I knew the breaker boxes are a different size (when going from 100 amp to 200 amp) but boy, have the 200 amp boxes gotten large. Everything goes up in size…the mast head at the top of the electric pole, the wire size coming in from the pole (it almost triples in size), and a different meter on the pole. It will be worth it to have the capability to add more circuits and be able to expand our business.

Greenhouse Construction:

		Chinese-Style Greenhouse VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The greenhouse construction has progressed very quickly, once the rafters were completed by the builder. He encountered some problems getting his workshop warm enough to cure the epoxy but once he got all of that worked out, he built the rafters in about a week. A week-long visit from family delayed them getting back to work so the original completion date of Christmas came and went.

The rafters are a unique aspect of the greenhouse. They need to be arched so that the gentle wrap of the poly plastic over the frame will not allow the plastic to flap in the wind and stress the plastic. Our rafters (and the whole design of the greenhouse) came from plans we purchased from Friendly Aquaponics .

This greenhouse is designed after Chinese-style greenhouses that were constructed thousands of years ago.

The important components that make this style of greenhouse so different from typical greenhouses is that three of the walls are insulated (north, east and west walls). On the Chinese style greenhouse shown above you can see the rolled mat on the roof, which is a thermal blanket that is rolled down over the face of the greenhouse at night to keep the heat in.

For our greenhouse we decided to use SIP’s (structural insulated panels) that we had left from insulating the barn and we used those to insulate the walls of the greenhouse. Between the Prodex and SIP’s we have an R-value of R-37 in the east, west and north walls of the greenhouse. There are no fossil fuel heating sources used in the greenhouse. Since our growing takes place in troughs, filled with water, we have a tremendous amount of thermal mass that will be in the greenhouse. Contrary to common growing practices in greenhouses, the important element is the water temperature, rather than the air temperature. The water in the tank that will house the fish will kept at a constant 72 degrees and this water will circulate through the troughs, where the veggies will be growing. Maintaining that 72 degrees temperature in the troughs is crucial. We insulated the floor of the greenhouse with Prodex, which will help us maintain and hold that temperature in the trough. We’ve also put Prodex around the tank that will hold the fish. I purchased two 300 gallon IBC totes. You have to be really careful where you get totes because you don’t want to buy something that had toxic chemicals stored in them or you’re fish won’t be around for long.

We had to have an excavator come in to put some fill inside the greenhouse to bring the floor up to where it should be. There was almost a 10” difference in drop from the front of the building to the back. Since our buildings are sitting at the base of a hillside, it made for a challenging site orientation for the buildings. Gravel was put in first and then 4” of sand on top. Today we put down the organic diatomaceous earth and citric acid, before putting down the layers of plastic and weed mat. The citric acid is a natural weed killer and the diatomaceous earth will kill any ants if they should try to come up under the greenhouse. When the troughs are built and the form stakes are driven into the ground, the DE will go with it and provide pest protection around these penetrations. On top of the DE and citric acid we put 6 mil black construction plastic, then a layer of Prodex and then geotextile fabric. All of these layers should provide a weed free, bug free (at least from creepy crawly things coming under the greenhouse) and insulated greenhouse.

At the end of the week, the plastic will go on, using wiggle wires and track (more on that next time). The metal has to go up on the ends of the greenhouse, a door installed on each end, solar fans mounted and gutter put on the barn. Friday should see most of this task list completed. The metal will have to wait a week since it won’t come in till next week. Sad for us because we have to leave on Sunday to go to Texas for a few months to complete some work assignments. Once we get back I will start building the troughs, the electrician will come back to put receptacles in the greenhouse and we’ll get veggies started. It’s been a super busy couple of months, stressful at times, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Good times ahead…..stay tuned for what we have in store.

LiveJournal Tags: Chinese-style greenhouse,greenhouse,electrician,builder,trough,Friendly Aquaponics,organic,diatomaceous earth,citric acid,Prodex,Mirafi geotextile,6 mil plastic,weed mat

Thanksgiving on the Farm

We had a wonderful family get together on Thanksgiving day, complete with a 17 pound free range turkey. It has been almost eight years since I’ve been around for Thanksgiving or Christmas. My work always took me to a warmer location at this time of year. My daughter and I were in charge of cooking the turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, and the awesome appetizer made with my mom’s jalapeno jelly. I love this relish and love that it’s so versatile. It’s so addictive and makes an awesome appetizer dish. I can’t wait to make it from our own organic jalapenos and peppers for others to enjoy. each family member brought a dish and we were blessed with a wonderful meal to share.

We thanked Susan (the turkey) for her service on the farm in the Bellefonte area of Pennsylvania. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a farm raised turkey like this before and was amazed at how juicy and flavorful it was. So different from the store bought type that is blah, as far as flavor and the meat is stark white. Since a farm raised turkey walks about the farm, it develops muscles and has bit legs. Farm raised turkeys are genetically raised to grow fast to go to market quicker and does not develop big legs (not much strutting around in the cage).  It was a wonderful experience, both of the food served and having family together again for the day.

I hope that each of you had something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. From all of us at New View Farm, we wish you a wonderful holiday season full of promise for an amazing 2015.

LiveJournal Tags: Thanksgiving,pasture raised turkey,free range,genetics,farm raised,jalapeno jelly,appetizer,Christmas

Second Week of Construction

		Week 2 of Barn Construction VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

With two days of pouring rain last week, I’ve totally lost count of what day of construction we’re on so I’ll just give a summary of where we’re at. As of right now, the four windows and two doors in the barn are in. The roof is finished (we had to wait a couple extra days for the ridge vent. It is special kind for metal roofing). The siding is done on the back and left side of the barn.

What’s left to do are the gutters (for rainwater harvesting), build the barn door, enclose the front above where the barn door will go, put the snow rail on the roof and put the metal above where the greenhouse butts up against the barn wall. The crew hasn’t worked yet this week….they are off doing a sheet rock install somewhere. Yesterday it poured rain most of the day, then the temps plummeted and as I write this, we have a wind chill of –3. Crazy weather. Yesterday I was trying to dig little trenches to divert the water away from the barn (because the guys dropped a giant rock in the middle of the drainage ditch and blocked it up). Yesterday is was wet and muddy….today it’s frozen. Luckily I got most of the water drained away so it wouldn’t turn into a giant skating rink.

My son, Jay worked with me last week and we kicked butt on getting the insulated panels installed. It is so much easier to deal with the large panels when there are two people to muscle them into place. We were mighty sore and bruised by the end of the week. The goal was to get at least 10’ up with the panels because according to the electrical code, they can run romex (the wrapped wire like you see that comes into an electrical receptacle) at the 10’ height and then drop down from there with conduit (the wire goes inside a metal pipe). Jay brought his drill and I had my cordless one. When the battery would die in mine, we’d switch over to his drill and keep going while mine charged. The screws that we use are called Fastenmaster Headlok screws. We have two different thicknesses of panels, 4.5” and 6.5” thick, that were given to us so we use a 5.5” and 7.5” screws to fasten them to the purlins. I ordered the screws from Amazon (it’s amazing the things you can find at Amazon and I just found out about ordering Amazon items from Smile Amazon so you can support your favorite non-profit) and within two days they were delivered right to our door. I don’t know if you can see from this picture but the screw has a really short area where the spiral is. Most of the shaft is smooth which lets it pass through the foam and then bite into the wood and draws it down tight. A regular screw, with the spiral the whole length would push the panel outward and be hard to draw it together tight. When you’re working as high up in the air as we are, it takes all your strength to pull a 20-30# panel up the ladder and then wrestle it into place and screw it. When I am working by myself, I cut the panels into smaller pieces but they are still really heavy to deal with.

We’re using the thinner panel on the shared wall between the greenhouse and the barn. We used the thicker ones on all the other walls. That way, the north, east and west walls have the higher R value. Since our winds come predominately from the west or north-west, we have the most insulation on those walls. Our contractor says we’ll have the best insulated barn that anyone has every seen…better than most people’s houses. Between the Prodex and the SIP’s (structural insulated panels), we’ve got close to R-48. We are filling any cracks with Great Stuff foam to make sure there won’t be any drafts. So back to the panel installation…Jay left early Friday evening and we had made great progress. I continued to work on them Saturday, Sunday and Monday. By 5:30 last evening, I had reached at least 10’ in all of the areas where there will be an electrical run. It made quite a dent in the pile of panels we had accumulated too. I had one 6.5” panel left and still quite a few of the 4.5”. We’re thinking about using the panels to insulate the greenhouse walls too. If we get more of the 4.5” panels over the next week or so, we’ll use those along with the Prodex on the greenhouse walls.

Last Friday the local NRCS agent came to the farm to do a farm plan. We talked about goals over the next 10 years. Most of our goals are spelled out in our permaculture plan that we did this past spring. He will take that info and incorporate it into our plan, which he and I will tweak. Since most of the acreage will be in the CREP program until 2016, we can’t do anything right now with that land so we will focus on the plans for the greenhouse. One of the first things we’re going to look at is doing an energy audit to see the viability of wind or solar for the property. Since 80% of the power needs for the aquaponic system are from the air pump (provides oxygenation to the fish and plant roots), I want to see if a windmill powered system would work at our site. If you recall from an earlier post, there are water aeration windmill systems out there that might be a big help to us. An energy audit would determine if our site is suitable or not. We had a great chat and it’s great to have someone in our corner who “gets” what we want to do, in a permaculture sense. He said there is funding available to help with the transition to organic and with organic certification so we will definitely be looking into that. I spoke with an organic certifying agency last week and she sent me a packet of papers that I need to fill out to get the process rolling. It’s no wonder that organic food costs so much more. Between the additional cost for organic seed and the certification costs (estimated around $3700 per year), it is a pricey investment for a farmer but an important one. I see it as an investment in our land. An investment for the future of our food supply to feed my family and others.

I think that brings us up to where we are right now. We’re ready for the electrician to start. He might not come until Monday but that’s ok. The goal right now is to get the barn door up and the barn cleared out because Linda comes home with the rig this Saturday. With winter making its’ presence known, we need to get the barn buttoned up so the rig will be ok. I’m hopeful that we can get the greenhouse up and closed in before the weather gets too bad but time will tell. At least we’re not in Buffalo, NY where they are expecting 3 feet of snow.

LiveJournal Tags: Romex,aquaponics,organic,conduit,SIP,Fastenmaster Headlok,NRCS,CREP,farm plan,Prodex