Probably should have put this part as the first in there series, but that's how I work, out of order. LOL

Building a Hydroponic Greenhouse

 It all started back in 2012, we had an idea that we could grow some tomatoes, not just any tomatoes but hydroponic tomatoes. At first I was skeptical, I had tasted the blah grocery store tomatoes and knew that we didn't want to sell "crunchy water" tomatoes to anyone, much less eat them ourselves. So I began to research, and found another grower that was a few hours away from us, I made contact with him and asked if I could come check out his operation, he said "come out and see the place" and so we did.

 His operation was smaller than ours is today, but at that time it was the largest, most complex thing I had ever seen growing tomatoes. He explained his setup and I was still skeptical about the product, until he plucked one of those red, ripe tomatoes right from the vine. I was amazed, acidic, fruity, bursting with tomato flavor, that was it I was hooked. I thanked him for the tour and the info and especially the sample of divine tomato goodness, and headed home. We began that very evening trying to get our operation off the ground and running.

 After a few weeks of wheeling and dealing, we had ordered the greenhouse package, hire a builder and made arrangements for a water well to be drilled and the Power company to run us a line. It all seemed to move rather quickly and before we knew it, things were getting built.

 Step 1 - Infrastructure

 First big thing to get done was to have a new electric service run to power the greenhouse.

 

Then we had to have a water well, can't really have hydroponics without hydro!

I did build the well house after the guys finished with the well, I do have some skills! lol

Step 2- Dirt Work and Foundation

 We hired a local contractor for the dirt work and foundation, at the same time the greenhouse builder sandwiches in between the two jobs, the support structure had to be installed after the dirt work but before the concrete pour to cement the support poles in place. 

 I had to dig this drain line too, see i'm not useless! 

The guy on the far left is Charlie, he is the head honcho on the build, he was around 70 at the time he built our greenhouse, he worked for hours straight in heat that was about to melt me just watching him, he is an animal!

*note the pictures above is from our addition that we did a year after the first two bays, but it was the same exact setup.

 After Charlie and his crew set the poles for the greenhouse structure, the concrete was poured around the poles.

Step 3- The Greenhouse Comes Together

After the slab work is done, Charlie the builder takes over and the greenhouse begins to take shape.

Gutters and arches go up first to complete the skeleton of the greenhouse.

 Once the arches are done, the end walls were framed, front end gets large exhaust fans, back end gets vent and cooling wall. The cooling wall is just a large swamp/evaporative cooler that sits right in front of the vent. 

And Finally the Wrapper!

Installing the Poly, is the final step in the build of the actual greenhouse, after that, all the heating and electric is installed the grow system goes in, I have briefly touched on that in previous posts .

So there you have it, a quick look into the making of a greenhouse, trust me when I say, that was the easy part.