"Can I Move?" my Greenhouse.

 

In the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), the two bank robbers decide to go straight in order to avoid discovery and capture.  They try out for a job at a mountain mine site.  The colourful mine boss asks Sundance if he can shoot and throws a coin in the dirt for him to shoot at.  Sundance, standing still, misses.  Then Sundance asks, “Can I Move?’ and when he's in motion, hits the coin numerous times.  The two are hired as payroll guards.

My greenhouse also has to Move!  Growing in containers doesn’t really work that well organically.  Commercial greenhouse growers use bags of growing medium and a nutrient rich chemical soup piped in to drip into the plants’ root systems.  Pesticides are used for controlling pests and such in the close mono-cropped greenhouses.  Organics don’t abide those conditions.

I plant my greenhouse plants: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and melons in the soil.  To do that for more than one year in the same spot results in nutritional deficiencies, pests and diseases.  So my greenhouse follows my four year crop rotation plan throughout the garden.  Each year it moves to the next set of beds. 

Eliot Coleman is an advocate of moving greenhouses and hoophouses.  My son, The Organic Grower (TOG) followed his lead and has successfully rolled his houses (13' X 50' and 20’ X 50’) using Coleman’s directions with both permanent and portable wheels for over 10 years.  (mine had been moving for much longer) 

My old greenhouse was smaller, 8 by 10 feet, made of cedar 2 X 2’s and sitting on a frame of cedar 4 X 4’s.  It was light enough to be pulled with a rope on skids to the next two beds.  

My new greenhouse is larger and much heavier, made of spruce 2 X 3’s and built upon spruce 2 X 10’s, it is 12 by 15 feet and covers three beds.  After I put it together, I discovered it wasn’t going to be moved by sliding it over skids like the old one.  And both TOG and I agreed it couldn’t be lifted by four guys and walked across the garden.

Last year I set up some rollers to go under the sides of the greenhouse and some planks to go under the rollers.  That hardly worked.  It constantly slid sideways off the rollers.  It was at the fourth year of the rotation and it needed to proceed over the whole garden to start over from the beginning.  Much like the carriage on an old manual typewriter, the bell had dinged and now the page must be moved to the other end to start another line of typing.  It took several difficult hours to “roll” the greenhouse to the far end.

This year I wanted to do something easier.  I bought four small, 10 inch pneumatic tires with wheel rims and bearings from Princess Auto.  I waited for a sale and picked them up for about $7 each.  Then I bought some ready rod – a six foot long piece of 5/8 inch threaded steel rod, and cut that into eight pieces for axels.  

I made skateboard like ‘scooters’ out of 2 X 4’s and since I didn’t have a drill press to make the holes for the axels perfectly perpendicular, I drilled ¾ inch holes.  There was no need to use nuts on the axels since we weren’t taking any corners, just slide the rods through the holes and wheels and let the weight of the load hold them in place.  

I guessed the house weighed about 600 lbs so that would put 75 lbs on each of the eight wheels. (the other four wheels I borrowed from the grandkids’ wagon).

Using a 45 year old piece of very hard Douglas Fir 2 X 10 for a lever, I got my Lovely Wife to stand on the plank, raising the end of the house while I installed each pair of wheels under the four door frames on the bed’s paths.

Then I pushed modestly and it started to roll nicely.  But then stopped.  Alas there was a kale plant that needed to be pushed down on its side to clear the under carriage.  It would hopefully survive and supply us with an extra early spring picking inside the greenhouse.

Once the kale cleared, the greenhouse rolled like a charm until it got to the end of the bed where the leading protruding wheels on the lower bed path came up to the higher grassed cross path.  I quickly got my shovel and carved a large divot out of the permanently grassed pathway to let the wheel continue the last foot.  Once the house was off its wheels there was no moving it, so I needed it to sit exactly where it was to rest.  

Removing the wheels was easier than installing them.  The sod divots from the grassed cross path were replaced and all sat well.  I will eventually drive some stakes to act as anchors against the winter winds (that is how the old greenhouse died) but I think the house’s weight will be the greater anchor.

Like Sundance’s shooting, my greenhouse performs much better when it Moves.

Happy Gardening.