For those 4' row covers linked above, some 1/2" EMT bent over a tractor rim works well.  I made some clamshell tree guards using EMT and welded wire to keep the deer of the fruit trees.  Just vise grip the EMT to the rim and bend, very easy.  A big propane tank would work too.

I also own this tube roller if anyone is on the east side of MO and wants to roll some chain link rail?  Mines rigged for electric power rolling too.  I use it in my side business but I'm all for freebie green house use too.
http://www.harborfreight.com/tubing-roller-99736.html

- JP

A little progress today... endwall arches installed a couple of days ago, poly stretched over the roof today:



Wind's gusting to around 25 this afternoon, and it seems solid enough.  Glad we got an early start before the wind woke up!

Stretching that poly's a pretty challenging man+wife task.  Got 'er done, though.

Progress seems kinda slow... I picked up a good deal on a couple of 30" aluminum ventilation shutters, normally $112/ea but I got two for $39/ea because of some minor dings.  So I had to backtrack a step and do some re-framing in the north and south walls to accomodate them.  Air will come in low in the southwest corner, exit high in the northeast.

North wall almost done:



South will be all twinwall:



One more good weekend should have the structure pretty much complete.  Then it's on to building the benches for the interior.  I've got some ideas for some wire rack shelving that I picked up on sale this weekend, will post pics when I get a prototype put together.

Almost there!  All enclosed now, doors and ventilation shutters installed... just need trim and touch-ups and the main structure is complete.  Still going to add a covered porch to the north end (the plywood end), and have to get power run to it so I can get the poly inflation fan installed.

Very nice!

First class job!

Thanks for all the compliments!

We've already put the greenhouse to work, though there's still quite a bit left to do.  The forecast here for the next week or so is highs in the mid-50's, lows in the low 40's, so we put all are garden bedding plants and a bunch of stuff we overwinter in the basement (babnanas and whatnot that serve as deck decorations in summer) out there last night.  For the last month or so we've been shuttling the bedding plants in and out of the house most nights, so they can get some sun but don't catch cold... our last frost was about two weeks ago.

I won't miss moving all those plants around every day.  We have several good-sized gardens, and it was about an hour's work every day for my wife and I just carrying them in and out.

I'm also looking at getting a tubing bender and gearing up to do a hoophouse or two (as per joemama's advice earlier in the thread).  I think I mentioned that my wife is in the gardening/landscaping/greenhouse biz, and it seems this year is booming for things like herbs and permaculture-type plants (berries, etc.).  I think the economy and general "state of the union" are leading people back to gardening and more self-sufficiency, and if that's true we may be able to generate a little side income next year by getting out in front of the wave.

I'm wondering how much plant material is just completely trashed from this weather. Someone in Mobile, AL mentioned in GD that their 2 acre vegetable garden was a complete loss simply from 10 minutes of hail. Then you start thinking about huge commercial nurseries like Flowerwood Nursery in Mobile with acres and acres of stuff growing on open gravel pads. What do the plants look like? Did the plastic pots survive?

Shrubs and small trees will come back if not snapped off, but a lot of the flower and vegetable production is going to take a hit. Big trees that are snapped are a loss, except for firewood.

I guess I'm just saying there might be more demand for certain stuff, but we'll just have to see how it plays out.

It looks great. Thanks for all the pictures.

No real progress in the last few weeks... spring's tentative arrival has us focusing on getting the real garden in the ground, so I haven't been able to revisit the remaining details (poly inflation blower, benches, trim, porch...) on the greenhouse yet.

But:  I'm glad we did this.  An unexpected late freeze last week - over a month past our average last frost date - wiped out virtually all of the tomato plants we put in the ground about two weeks ago, thinking surely we were safe at that point.  That's 50 some-odd plants (we can a lot and like to experiment with different heirloom varieties), plus a batch of homebrew grafted tomatoes that I had quite a bit of work in.

Luckily, we had backups of just about everything safely tucked away in the greenhouse.  Chances are we wouldn't have hung on to our backup plants this long if we hadn't had a convenient place to stick 'em, so we'd have been hosed... relegated to repurchasing and planting boring (and expensive, compared to growing your own) garden store seedlings.

So, win #1!