As many of you know, we’re planning to open our café next year. Our goal is to offer our guests fresh fruits and vegetables from our own garden for as long as possible. To help extend the growing season – both in spring and fall – we’ve built a greenhouse with 45 square meters of floor space.
The greenhouse is neither insulated nor heated, but we expect that it won’t cool down as much at night compared to the outside. That’s thanks to the surrounding granite stone walls and concrete, which retain heat and release it slowly.
The frame is made of galvanized aluminum, and the roof and side walls are constructed from toughened ESG glass. It’s a solid, heavy-duty build – something we deliberately chose, as the greenhouse needs to withstand strong winds and hail. We wanted something that can handle such stress easily and last for many years.
The greenhouse has 14 roof windows and 4 side windows, all equipped with automatic, temperature-controlled openers. There are also four manually operable windows at the back wall, and of course, the doors can be left open too. That should prevent it from overheating in the peak of summer and harming the plants.
Watering is semi-automated, just like with our raised beds. A drip irrigation system is connected to our well water and needs to be switched on and off manually.
We’ll be testing the greenhouse thoroughly this year, and we’re hopeful that next spring we’ll be able to start planting delicate crops earlier than before.