Pastures, Gardens and House Lawn

Two Projects Completed Late Last Year

May 23, 2020 /
  • Extra bamboo roof rails
  • Before restoration
  • Barn tables, more later
  • Completed Winter rig
It is good to be on the other side of an intensely busy 12 months. Here are photos of what we’ve built and restored for growing purposes. The trays of cactus seedlings became thousands of individually potted cacti in December and the hard nursery I built in July was no longer enough. This Outsunny 26ft greenhouse has a lot of bang for just under $300, though modifications are needed to properly anchor it, prevent water issues and increase air flow. Here you can see the bamboo rails I wired to the frame, and they’ve done a great job of preventing 150lb pools of water from hammocking in the roof frame. I also reused 4′ long earth anchors that I unscrewed from mowable areas to secure it from high wind – saved a lot of money. High temperatures in there starting in early Spring told me I needed to cut a back end flap to convert it into a high tunnel for remainder of warm season. I’ll sew on zipper strips before Winter. Fans and an added layer of shade cloth on the outside of it are doing the rest.

With vision and teamwork, the car port became The Potting Station for Mom, and pallets we were given by our neighbor Jack and also Lowes made several work spaces complete and usable after I added legs. One of the back wall panels probably had been blown off during Irma so I had the idea of replacing it with clear corrugated Tuftex panels for a hip modern look.

The temporary plastic nursery add-on that I made with bamboo and held together with clips was heated using a small electric space heater, and it was good long enough to protect plants from a handful of freezes before windstorms finally blew the plastic sheeting off in late Feb. It also covered the adjacent hard nursery for those few months. This rig also saved some of our orchids and succulents from damage. Next Winter I might just add another 26ft Outsunny to take up the load, and I’m looking at setting up a number of water-filled black plastic drums inside to store ambient daytime heat to radiate during night-time lows. They’ll double as table legs.
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James V. Freeman is an established visual artist (oil painting) with a deep interest in natural history, plants and farming. He has had numerous solo shows, a solo museum show, an upcoming museum show and his work has been featured in many publications to date. He currently has a studio in Williston, Fl at the family farm and homestead, "Cactus Island", and as a farmer, specializes in growing columnar cacti of the Caribbean and Gulf countries as well as the aquatic Madegascar Lace Plant. James and his mom Sharon manage and develop the permaculture homestead.