DIY Projects - Dog Kennel Greenhouse Part I: Introduction and the ridge rail

As a gardener, a greenhouse is one of the most useful pieces of equipment you can have. When we think of greenhouses, we may think only of the big greenhouses that commercial nurseries have, and those are nice, but you can build a greenhouse out of almost anything. Basically, a greenhouse is a frame covered with the appropriate material. While I'll be building a couple of hoop greenhouses this year, those aren't the only kinds of greenhouse there are.

My first greenhouse, The Cube.

The first greenhouse I ever built, and one that I still use, I called The Cube. It was a square steel frame that my father had built for a winery to handle wine barrels.  When the winery no longer needed it, dad gave it to me. I covered it with greenhouse film, put a white tarp on top, and voila! I had a greenhouse. It served me well for years. It's small as far as greenhouses go, being only around 90 square feet, but one year I produced almost 400,000 plugs and containers of produce from it. It was the heart and engine of my small farm and small greenhouses continue to be the heart and engine of my garden.

The Cube currently sits idle while I refurbish it, so I needed to set up another small greenhouse. I have a dog kennel that I used to house poultry last year. It's close to the house, and gets sun most of the day, even in the dead of winter. It's partially under an old apple tree, but the tree doesn't interfere with the sun during the winter, and not much in the summer, so it's in a good location, and I've decided to repurpose it as a greenhouse.

Regular greenhouse frames are simple structures. The most common use a bow and post system. There is hardware made for connecting the bows, posts, purlins and struts as well as attaching the greenhouse film. But when you start working with other types of frames, a bit of ingenuity is required as every structure will have its own challenges to overcome.

This may look like a complicated build, but really, as you read through the article, I think that you'll find that it's a pretty simple and straight forward project requiring only basic building skills. If you can pound nails, tie a knot, and operate a couple of basic power tools, you can build something like this. It's just a matter of knowing what you want and being able to think outside the box a bit. Being able to read a tape measure comes in handy too. ;-)

Dog kennel greenhouse under construction.

This kennel was given to me years ago and is actually built from the parts from two different kennels. It has two doors and isn't square. It's approximately the same square footage as The Cube (90 square feet, give or take), but not being square, installing a center ridge will be interesting. I'm also going to be building it from as many existing materials as possible. I'll be using Schedule 40 PVC for the bows that will support the top, and nailer boards around the top of the walls to hold the greenhouse film that will cover the structure. I'll also be using suspended shelving instead of benches. The Cube uses benches, which makes it easy for rodents to get to the trays holding the seedlings, a problem that I've been fighting ever since I set up The Cube. Mice find germinating seed and seedlings irresistible, and there are fewer things more frustrating than finding hundreds of seed shells sitting on top of the potting soil, laying open like books after some little varmints have dug them up and eaten the meat of the seed during the night....

The first part of the build is the ridge rail. For this I used some scrap lumber and an old 2" X 8" X 10' plank. The lumber is old, but it'll work for this build. I'll probably remodel the kennel over the winter or next year, as I see things I'd like to improve, so I don't need the lumber to last for more than a year. Because no two sides of the kennel are parallel and because only two sides are the same length, the ridge rail is lashed to one side of its post on one end and the other side of its post on the other end. It looks funky, but it works and is pretty secure.

I like to use a ridge rail for a couple of reasons. First, it helps to support the roof. In this case, I'm using PVC pipe for the bows, and given that the roof will span 9' - 10', I need the extra support. Second, a ridge rail gives me a place to hang lights and/or a coiled water hose. The Cube has a ridge rail made from a steel I-beam. There is a trolley that runs on the beam and that I've hung a coiled hose from. I can't tell you how convenient it is to have the hose up instead of laying on the ground. It's up and out of the way when I'm not using it, so it doesn't get tangled, I don't have to worry about tripping over it when I'm moving things in or out of the greenhouse, and when I am using it, all I have to do is pull it out. This greenhouse won't have a trolley, but it's small enough that I can hang the hose from the center of the rail and use it the same way. If this greenhouse was long, I'd be setting up a trolley or set of rollers on the ridge rail similar to what The Cube has.

Lashing. It's important to lash the ridge rail to the upright both at the top and the bottom, I used two pieces of poly twine for the lashing. The kennel is just a little wider than the ridge rail is long, so I had to scab on some pieces of 2 X 4.

Instead of nailing or screwing the ridge rail to the end braces, I'm lashing them with baling twine. I have livestock and so I buy hay. I always save my baling twine and I won't buy hay baled with sisal or jute twine because they're difficult to work with. Poly twine is smooth and easy to reuse. I use poly twine for all sorts of things. Lashing, netting, braided rope, even lashed hinges can be made out of the stuff. It'll only last for a couple of years out in the elements (it's not UV stable), but for temporary things it can't be beat. And it's recyclable. Poly twine is recycled into more poly twine. I'm particular in how I cut the twine on a bale of hay or straw. I always try to cut it at the knot and hang it up when I remove it from the bale. When I remove what ever I've secured with the twine, all I need to do is untie the knot and undo the lashing, or I can use a knife or scissors and put the twine in the recycling bag if I don't plan on reusing it.

Supporting the "other" end of the rail.

When working on projects like this, it's easier if there are two people, especially when handling something like the ridge rail. But if you're doing it by yourself, you can make yourself an extra hand to support one end of the board while you're working on the other end. I screwed this piece of scrap to the upright to support the end of the rail and loosely tied it to the upright to keep it from sliding off, but not so tight that I couldn't move the rail back and forth to position it.

While I have a good set of tools, this building project is pretty simple and doesn't require a long list of tools or extensive construction experience. With some ingenuity and basic building skills, you can repurpose an existing structure as a small greenhouse. It's also not a terribly expensive project. I'm using scrap lumber, pallets I got for free, and greenhouse film I already have on hand to build the project, so it won't cost me much. But even if you did have to buy new lumber and film, it still wouldn't cost you as much as buying a regular greenhouse kit, and it can make your garden incredibly productive. I figured that when I built The Cube, I was into that project for less than $150. I have a couple of auto canopies that I will be converting to greenhouses this year and if I had to buy the frames, lumber and film new I would be into them for less than $350 each, which would be pretty reasonable for a 10' X 20' greenhouse. I'll include a list of materials and the tools I'm using to build this greenhouse at the end of the series.

To be continued in Part II framing in the roof.

This is a 4 part series on the conversion of a dog kennel into a greenhouse. When the project is finished and all of the articles are written, I'll post links to all of them here. Articles scheduled for this series:
Part I: Introduction and the ridge rail
Part II: Framing the roof
Part III: Hanging the shelves
Part IV: Installing the greenhouse film and conclusion

All content including pictures © Joanne Rigutto unless otherwise noted.

Things You Might Not Have Known Were Edible - Walnut Drupes

Walnuts are actually a drupe, meaning that it's a seed encased in a fleshy cover. What we usually eat is the inside of the seed after the drupe has completely matured. Almonds, coconuts, peaches and nectarines are also drupes. Blackberries and raspberries are made up of collections of druplets that form the berry.

I don't know if the raw drupes are edible, but, like olives, they are delicious when pickled. I forget where I first heard of pickled walnuts, but it's been a thing in Europe for a very long time. And it's become a staple condiment in my home.

Pickled walnuts are salty with a rich flavor and I like to use them, either mashed or puréed with their own pickle juice and spices, as a condiment. This purée  can be used like a steak sauce and is excellent with all meat and poultry, on baked potatoes, etc. The pickling juice can be used as you would soy sauce and is just as salty as soy sauce. The pickled spices, when dried, can be ground and used as a seasoning. Pickling the drupes is a pretty straight forward process, similar to pickling olives. It takes a couple of weeks, but I think it's well worth the effort.

Immature walnut drupes are a seasonal crop, and they don't store very well, so they need to be processed when they're picked. However, once they've been pickled, they'll keep for a long time either frozen or stored in the pickling solution. They're also shelf stable, so they don't require canning.

Bucket o' Drupes.

The time to pick the drupes is mid June, when they have gotten as large as possible, but before the hard shell has begun to form. I like to pick them during the second and third week of June. I always check some drupes prior to picking to make sure the shell hasn't started to form. To do this I insert a needle or toothpick into the stem and blossom ends of a few of the largest drupes. I can feel the shell if it's started to form and I know, if I find a shell, not to pick any drupes that size. Usually though, I don't find a shell and I can pick all the drupes, both large and small.

Drupe and floral disk. I just roll the drupe over the disk with enough pressure to prick the surface. You can buy floral disks at most craft shops.

After the drupes are picked, they're washed to remove any dust or debris and run through a mild sanitizing solution. Then the ends are cut off and the skins pricked to allow the brine to penetrate the drupe. I like to use a floral disk. It punctures the surface of the drupes evenly and it's a lot faster than using a fork or a pin, especially since I will process up to 6 gallons of drupes at a time.

A pan of drupes ready to go into their first brine.

Once the drupes have been pricked they're ready to soak in their first brine. They'll soak in this for 5 days, then be rinsed and put in a second brine for 7 more days. I use plain (un iodized) salt. You can use pickling salt, but I find that the plain granulated salt is less expensive than the pickling salt and does just as well.

Drupes that have been going through their first brine. You can see that some of them have turned black on the surface that was exposed to air. This isn't a problem as they'll turn coal black in the next step.

Once the drupes have gone through the second brine, it's time to dry. I drain the drupes and rinse them, then place them on racks to air dry for 3 days.

Drupes drying in nursery trays.

I like to use these nursery trays to dry the drupes. They're large, hold a lot of drupes and have spaces in the grid that are big enough for most of the drupes to rest in with minimal contact. I turn the drupes once a day. At the end of the drying process the drupes will be coal black and wrinkled. As the drupes dry, a fine, tawny colored powder will form on parts of them. This is the salt drying on the surface and it's normal.

Dried drupes ready for the spiced pickling solution.

Once they've dried, they're ready to go into jars with spices, garlic cloves, and a hot pickling solution of salt, water, and vinegar. I like to wait a month or two before starting to use them to allow the spices and garlic to flavor both the drupes and the juice. As I mentioned, they're shelf stable at this point, needing no refrigeration and they don't need to be canned. However, because they're not canned, I do recommend keeping the rings on the jars (I use one pint wide mouth canning jars), as the seal after the jars have cooled won't be as strong as on jars that have gone through a pressure or water bath canner. Because there is so much salt, I recommend using plastic canning lids instead of the metal lid and ring system.

If you'd like to try some pickled walnuts without having to make them, you can find them at Amazon and directly from other purveyors on the web.

Pickled Walnuts

For the brine -
1/2 cup plain (un iodized) salt to 5 cups water. Bring to a boil and stir until salt is dissolved.

For the pickling solution -
3 C water
3 C apple cider vinegar
6.5 T plain (un iodized) salt

Dry Spice Mix -
4 T whole coriander seed
4 T whole yellow mustard seed
4 T whole black peppercorns
4 whole peeled garlic cloves

Method -

• Pick and rinse the walnut drupes in clean water, then run through a mild sanitizing solution of  1 T bleach per gallon of tap water, and rinse thoroughly.
• Trim off the end of each drupe and prick the surface evenly.
• Place drupes in a non reactive container (I use a food safe plastic bucket) and cover with brine. Place a plate and clean weight over them to keep them submerged. Leave in this first brine for 5 days.
• Drain, rinse, and place in fresh brine, covering with plate and weight, and leave for another 7 days.
• Remove from brine, rinse, and lay out on racks making sure that the drupes don't touch each other. Allow to air dry for 2-3 days, until black and wrinkled and the surface is dry.
• Clean enough canning jars to hold the drupes, then pack in the jars along with 4 whole peeled garlic cloves per pint.
• Combine the water, salt and vinegar for the pickling solution in a pan and bring to a boil.
• Add 2 T of the dry spice mix per pint to the jars, then pour the boiling pickling solution over the drupes, leaving a little head space.
• Wipe the rim of each jar and lid.
• Allow to sit on a towel to cool completely before storing in the pantry.
• Allow to age for at least one month before using.

Walnut Sauce I

Ingredients -
2-4 pickled walnuts
1 t spices from the jar
1 of the garlic cloves from the jar
2 T of the juice from the jar to start

Method -

• Chop the walnuts and garlic, then add, along with the spices and pickle juice, to a wide mouth one pint canning jar.
• Purée with a stick blender, adding more pickle juice from the jar to bring the sauce to the consistency you want. I like to make my sauce about the same consistency as steak sauce or ketchup.
• Store in an air tight container or squeeze bottle.

Variations on the theme -

• Add some sugar to sweeten the sauce and temper the saltiness.
• Add a little bit of raisin paste to the sauce to temper the saltiness and add another layer of flavor.
• Add a little bit of Hoisin sauce to the walnut sauce to add another layer of flavor and temper the saltiness.
• Add a little sesame oil when puréeing to give it an Asian flavor.

All content including pictures © Joanne Rigutto unless otherwise noted.

Home Brewing - Roasted Wheat Beer

As I mentioned in the post on Ginger Beer my staple beverage is roasted wheat beer. It's a small beer, being fermented for only a few days, so it's relatively low in alcohol. It's delicious (at least I like it) and is easy to make. I make it from white wheat that I've roasted in the oven.

This beer is light and refreshing, but still has a rich flavor of roasted wheat and, if allowed to age a week or two, it will have some coffee flavors. It's lightly hopped with a mild bitterness. I use Safbrew s-33 yeast and Cascade Hop pellets. It's hopped during the boil as well as dry hopped during fermentation. I drink it as a still beer, but if you want carbonation, you can bottle it.

The first step is to roast the wheat. I prefer to work with white wheat because I think that roasting red wheat gives the beer too strong a flavor, and the tannins in the bran of the red wheat will add too much bitterness. I prefer a mildly bitter beer.

Roasted wheat. I've put some raw white wheat in the center for a before/after comparison.

To roast the wheat, fill a sheet pan to 1"-1 1/2" depth and bake in the oven at 350° F for 45-60 minutes. Stir the grain every 15 minutes or so and remove when it's a deep golden to reddish color. I allow the grains to cool until they're comfortable to handle if I'm going to mill right away, otherwise I let them cool to room temperature and then store in an air tight container.

Once the grains have cooled, it's time to mill them. Milling breaks the grains up so there's more surface area exposed to the enzyme I'll be adding to the mash. If I was using malted barley along with the wheat I wouldn't need to add an enzyme, but because I'm starting with raw wheat that hasn't been malted, I need to add the enzyme that will break down some of the starch into fermentable sugars. Working with unmalted wheat, even with the enzyme, I won't wind up with enough fermentables for the yeast to eat, but the enzyme does break down some of the starch and I find that the flavor is better when the enzyme is used.

The cereal mill on its rolling table. The receptacle is a tray from an old rice steamer.

I have a small malt mill that's designed for milling brewers grains, but I find that this little cereal mill works better for me. I bought the cereal mill through Amazon for a bit less than $25. I don't even want to think about how many 100s of lbs. of grain I've run through this mill. Makes for a good workout, but I do have to remember to switch between hands when I operate it so I don't build up muscles on one arm more than the other.... It's a great little mill. I've ground wheat, popcorn, and barley with it.

Milled wheat.

I've got my mill set to just crack the wheat. I don't want flour or wheat meal. I won't be using rice hulls or anything else to allow the wort to drain from the grains at the end of the mashing process, and if I grind the grain too fine I'll wind up with dough when it's mashed.

Mashing the grain.

While I'm milling the grain I heat a gallon of water to 160° F to 170° F depending on whether the grain is warm or cold. I use 2 1/4 lbs of grain per gallon of water. That's actually what the receptacle of the cereal mill holds, which just happens to be the right amount. The average grain bill for all grain brewing is 2 lbs. per gallon of strike water (which is the water before the grain is added). Prior to adding the grain, I add 2 teaspoons of Amylase enzyme powder, stir until dissolved and then pour the grain in. I stir to even out the grain in the pan and then turn off the heat, cover, and let steep for 2 hours, leaving the pan on the burner.

Draining and pressing the grains.

Once the mashing is finished, I pour the wort and grains into a large colander that I've placed in a large pan. I like to flatten the grain out and using the sprayer from the sink and water as hot as it'll come out of the tap, I'll just rinse the grains a bit. This is to help get as much flavor out of the grains as possible. I don't spray more than a couple cups of hot water over the grain. Then I place a plate that's just a little smaller than the colander over the grains, put a pan on that, and a gallon jug of water in that pan. This makes a press and helps to get as much wort out of the grains without squeezing too much unconverted starch out of the grains. I let them sit like this for an hour or so.

Once the grains are drained, they go in the bucket and will be fed to livestock. Everyone loves spent grains. This spent wheat could even be incorporated into bread dough, or used in a wheat pilaf if I wanted to eat it myself. Or I could dry some of it and mill it into flour. It is perishable and will sour in a day or two, so it needs to be used right away.

Once I've drained the grains, the resulting liquid is called wort. I pour the wort into a pan, bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and add some sugar. I'll simmer it for a short while and then add hop pellets and simmer for around 5 minutes more, then strain and cool before pouring it into the fermenter and adding some more hop pellets.

My strainer. It's a splatter screen for covering frying pans. It's a fine mesh stainless steel screen that makes a perfect fine sieve.

I used to use hop cones (the whole flower of the hop plant), but I switched to pellets. They're easier to measure out and store for me. My go to hop is Cascade. It's mildly bitter and has a wonderful citrusy aroma that it imparts to the beer, especially when dry hopping, which is what I do when I add hops to the beer when it's fermenting as opposed to the hops I add to the boil. Cooked hops and cool steeped hops bring different flavors to a beer. There are many different types of hops out there and they all have their own wonderful characteristics. Cascade is my favorite though. In addition to flavor, hops act as a preservative, helping to keep the beer from spoiling. Hops are a relative newcomer to the beer ingredients list, only having been used for the past 500 or so years. Before that (and even now) many things were used to flavor beer, herbs, spices, etc. Nowadays, beer that's flavored with things other than hops is called Gruit.

Once strained and cooled, the wort will be poured into the fermenter, topping off with some distilled water or tap water that I've boiled to remove any chlorine, and I'll pitch my yeast. I pitch my yeast dry. Some people pitch their yeast into a sugar and water solution and let it grow overnight before pitching. If you want to use less yeast this is a good way to go. It's a good thing to be able to inoculate the wort with as many yeast cells as possible. That way any yeast or bacteria from the wild that get into the wort (which, lets face it, will happen unless you're working in a sterile lab) will be overwhelmed by the yeast you want to be working for you. It's also a handy way to make your dry yeast go farther.

Roasted Wheat beer in one gallon fermenters from multiple run.

The picture above is from a triple batch made with the recipe below. I like to make multiple batches as it gives me the opportunity to play with the recipe. It'll also give me slightly different flavors in the finished product and makes enough that I can age the beer for a little while. What I do is to make three batches and combine the wort in one large pot. I let it sit for a few hours so that the sediment will settle. For this I use a large canning pot that holds between 3 and 4 gallons.

Once the wort has settled I pour off one gallon of wort into a pan and go through the boil steps, cool, etc.. Pour off a second gallon, boil, etc. and finally process the last gallon. The first gallon will be the darkest and clearest, the last will be lightest and cloudiest. In the picture the jar on the back left is the first gallon, the jar in the back right is the second gallon, and the front center is the third gallon. I also had 1/2 gallon (not pictured) that had a lot of sediment. If you look at the bottom of the jars you can see how much sediment each gallon has.

The first gallon will finish with cleaner, more simple flavors and I'll probably drink it first. The second will have more complex flavors and the third gallon and the half gallon will have the most complex range of flavors, they will also yield the least amount of finished beer as they have the most sediment at the bottom of each container and they will have aged longer.


Roasted White Wheat Beer - makes one gallon


Ingredients -
2 1/4 lb. cracked roasted white wheat (not malted)
1 gallon water (tap water is fine as long as it tastes good to you)*
20 Cascade hop pellets
1 cup white granulated sugar
2 t Amylase powder
1 t Safbrew s-33 yeast
1/2 gallon boiled water or distilled water

Method -

• In a large pan, bring 1 gallon of water to 160° F (170° F if your grain has been stored)
• Add the Amylase powder and stir to incorporate, then pour in your cracked wheat
• Turn off burner and cover. Leave the pan on the burner for 2 hours.
• Place a colander over a catch pan and pour the wort and grains in it. Cover with a plate that's a little smaller than the colander on the grain and put a weight on it to press the grains. I use a one gallon milk jug filled with water. Don't use more weight than that or you'll extrude some of the grain out the holes in the colander.
• Once the grains have drained, pour the wort back into your pan and bring to a boil.
• Reduce to a fast simmer and add the sugar, stirring to dissolve.
• Simmer for 15 minutes.
• Add half of the hop pellets and simmer for another 5 minutes.
• Place a fine mesh screen over another pot (I use one of those round spatter screens that are made to go over a frying pan) and pour the wort through it. This will strain out any stray grains that made it into the wort as well as the hops.
• Allow the wort to cool until it's just warm to the touch (100° - 105° F) and pour into your fermenter.
• Use the extra water to top off the fermenter to one gallon.
• Add the rest of the hop pellets and allow to dissolve, then sprinkle the yeast grains over the wort.
• Cover or fit an airlock and allow to ferment for 3-5 days, then bottle.

Note: When straining and transferring the wort into the fermenter, try to incorporate air by holding the primary container a ways up when pouring. In other words, don't be gentle. When the wort is boiled, in addition to concentrating and pasteurizing it, a lot of the oxygen is driven out. Yeast needs oxygen in addition to sugars to survive and thrive. By being rough when pouring, you'll add air. Of course, the air will have wild yeast and any airborne bacteria, which is why culturing your yeast prior to pitching, or pitching a goodly amount of dry yeast grains is good. That way the good yeast will have a better chance of getting the jump on any rif raf riding in on the air. Once the yeast get established a layer of carbon dioxide will form on the surface of the wort, along with foam, and that'll help prevent any other rif raf from invading your wort as it ferments.

All content including pictures © Joanne Rigutto unless otherwise noted.