A BUILD-IT-YOURSELF PINE POLE GREENHOUSE

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At this point our jumble of "Lincoln Logs" had taken the shape of the greenhouse it was to become. We went on to nail the rafters (R and S) down the centers of the two roof slopes and install another horizontal pole (T) along the north slope to serve as the bottom sill for the windows that we knew would be necessary to vent excess heat. The window frames each consisted of four thin poles nailed together in the form of a rectangle. As illustrated in Fig. 5, the windows—which rest on stops made of short sticks—can be raised or lowered with 4' -long poles that are wired to the frames. Each of these two sticks has holes drilled along its length at regular intervals, and these openings can be fitted over a headless nail in the bottom sill to hold the ports open in a number of positions.

To conclude the framing, we nailed cross braces from each side of the ridgepole to E and F. The door was made in the same fashion as the windows, but included cross bracing at its corners for added rigidity; a short crosspiece was also installed just above the door. Finally, we ripped two long logs in half and nailed these around the base of the structure (to serve as soil retainers and to provide a surface to which the plastic covering's bottom edge could be stapled) and ran a pair of wires over the peak of the roof to provide additional support for the glazing that'd be added later.

TIPTOE THROUGH THE TERRACES
Moving to the inside of the greenhouse, we constructed two pairs of terraces, separated by a central path running across the slope.

As shown in Fig. 6, each bed was built by setting two half logs on edge—one atop the other—and holding them in place with wooden stakes. The "steps" thus created were filled in with a mixture of soil, compost, and goat manure, and small pathways were left to allow close-up tending of the topmost and lowest terraces.

RAISING THE GLAZING
Since our aim from the beginning of this project was to produce a working greenhouse for the smallest cash outlay possible, we elected to cover the structure with plastic. (We replace this every fall.) The north wall doesn't get any direct sunlight, of course, so we chose to wall it with black plastic and used clear material on the rest of the building. We simply rolled the sheets down the hill on the upwind side of the greenhouse and lifted them up and over the roof. The material was then stapled in place, each edge being folded over twice and covered with a strip of 1" roofing felt before the fasteners were inserted. When glazing the doors and windows we were careful to leave a wide "hem" of plastic around the borders to prevent rain from dripping in and to limit the infiltration of cool outside air. (People who live in more severe climates might want to double glaze their greenhouses by attaching an additional layer of plastic to the inside of the structure.)

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