Last year Dan and I bought a beautiful used greenhouse together. We bought it from some great folks just outside of town for a great price, the only caveat was that we had to break it down, store it, and put it back up (we also need to put new plastic on it). The greenhouse is huge, it's a Gothic style at 32' x 60' with a heater and garage door. In all fairness, Dan put in the majority of the grunt work when it came to breaking it down, he probably put over 100 hours into it and one of his friends had to get stitches from a falling beam, so it was quite the epic project! Now, after 6 months of storage the time has finally come to try to put all of the pieces back together and it's definitely not going to be easy. Currently we don't have land of our own so we decided to donate the greenhouse to the SEEDS Farm for the next several years. This way the greenhouse can be used by the farm, community gardeners, and hopefully the public as well, we'd love to see it as accessible and an asset to the community.
This is a picture of the greenhouse while it was being broken down last summer:
This is a picture of the greenhouse while it was being broken down last summer:
This is a picture of what we have to work with now...... it's in a million little pieces stored in a barn at our farmhouse from last season:
Today was the beginning of our huge Operation Greenhouse project. The first step is to move all of the pieces from it's storage spot to the SEEDS Farm, we accomplished two full trips today (it's going to take A LOT more trips!). The goal is to have the greenhouse up and running this summer so it will be available for use this fall and beyond. Our friend, Howie from EcoGardens, is going to help us out, he's a huge asset because he really knows what he's doing. Yesterday we visited him at EcoGardens and he drew out some sketches of the best game plan to move forward, he then came out to the farm with us to scope out the site and discuss how to level the ground, create right angles for the corners, drill holes, etc. A lot of planning has to go into the project!
Out at the farm, Dan and Howie also had some fun with the tractor:
....and then Becca and I picked a bunch of strawberries, first ones of the year! They're so delicious....
Later that night this is what I made with those fresh strawberries... yum!
So simple but the perfect dessert. Simply dip super sweet fresh local strawberries in home-made whipped cream.
To make the whipped cream:
-1 cup heavy cream
-2 Tbsp+ pure maple syrup
Pour cup of heavy cream in a bowl. Use a beater (I use a hand crank one) and beat the heavy cream for a few minutes until it magically turns into whipped cream. Then pour 2 Tbsp pure maple syrup into whipped cream and stir, taste, if you want it sweeter simply add more syrup (sugar is soooo not necessary). Serve with in-season fruit, perfection!
To make the whipped cream:
-1 cup heavy cream
-2 Tbsp+ pure maple syrup
Pour cup of heavy cream in a bowl. Use a beater (I use a hand crank one) and beat the heavy cream for a few minutes until it magically turns into whipped cream. Then pour 2 Tbsp pure maple syrup into whipped cream and stir, taste, if you want it sweeter simply add more syrup (sugar is soooo not necessary). Serve with in-season fruit, perfection!