Greenhouse – Part 2: Critter Proofing + Pea Gravel

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Welcome friends! We had spring break off from school last week. Mr. Ethereal and I spent a lot of time working outside in the garden. He is working on locating all of the sprinkler control valves while I have been working out in the new greenhouse…

If you haven’t seen this post yet, you can check it out here ~ Hubby’s Surprise Gift of a New Greenhouse.

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Critter-proofing the greenhouse floor and sides

I loooove having a week off during early spring! The first weekend was windy, rainy and cold, so I worked indoors doing some spring cleaning and finishing some painting projects. Outside, with up to 50 mph winds, the plastic over the greenhouse whipped off, so Mr. Ethereal stuffed it behind the greenhouse to preserve it.

By Monday, the clouds had moved off and we were blessed with a lovely 70 – 80 degree week…

This was perfect weather for working out in the garden where I spent most of my mornings and afternoons lining the bottom and sides of this new greenhouse with 1/4″ hardware cloth.

I had read online that the only way to keep small rodents out was to use 1/4″ wire hardware cloth, which also comes in a 1/2″ size. We have had a lot of problems with voles eating the roots off of newly planted roses and plants since we moved in, so now I really swear by the magic of hardware cloth! You can plant roses completely encaged in hardware cloth if need be.

I also sprinkle animal repellent pellets around anything I plant and try to dig in plants which these varmints won’t eat. 😉

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Where to begin?

I began by hoeing the dirt mostly free of crabgrass, then raking it semi-flat. This is when I realized we needed pea gravel right away, so I went out to pick up some lunch and drove down the Lewisville to a rock seller there off HW 121, if you are familiar with DFW’s I-35 corridor. 🙂

Caprock Hardscape Supply 792 E. Main Street, Lewisville, TX 75057

I love rock yards and have been going to them since I was about 14-15 years old with my father! We would drive up to Placerville or the town of El Dorado (east of Placerville, off HW 49 ~ all part of the Gold Rush country) to pick up supplies my father needed to build things on our five acre property in Shingle Springs, California. I helped my dad build our goat pen and part of the little house for the goats (mainly watched, but I learned a lot!).

From those years working on the goat pen or when Dad was reroofing the house, and later working one summer doing construction clean-up and earning money for it (age 17), I learned that from building something yourself there is a lot of satisfaction which comes from hard work.

I brought in several buckets-full of pea gravel and dropped those behind the bricks holding up the greenhouse. I spent an hour or so getting gravel underneath these bricks which would help with critter-proofing the bottom of the greenhouse.

Hubby ended up making a pile in our backyard for the rest of the pea gravel until it is needed. He showed me that I should have used a tarp to keep the gravel out of the tailgate… Ooops! 🙁

We quit around 5:00 p.m. for the day as we were both pretty tired, and got some dinner.

That was my Monday.

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At the same time, I added pea gravel along the right side to help “level” the greenhouse floor somewhat. Mr. Ethereal didn’t do this as he was building it, except for the bricks on the corners so it needed to be done.

I used four rolls of 36″ wide metal hardware cloth to line around the upper part of the greenhouse vertically, plus another five rolls and just about every scrap to line to the floor. I got about half-way completed without moving the long planter bed. Hubby came in as the day was finishing and moved the dirt for me. He moved the dirt out of the 6.5′ x 2.5′ Vego bed and onto a tarp.

Beginning work at the front of the greenhouse seemed like the right thing to do; however, we talked about where we should move the planter bed. Pretty quickly I realized that I needed to work at the back of the greenhouse instead…

It felt like an entire day’s work was wasted, even though all of the floor needed to be done and it wasn’t really. 😉

That was my Tuesday.

*If anyone knows how to “group” these two photos side-by-side, would you please send me a message or leave the fix in the comments? Thx! 🙂

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How to “fold” hardware cloth

Day 3 & 4, Wednesday/Thursday – I began working at the back of the greenhouse laying hardware cloth.

The best way I found to “fold” the hardware cloth was to:

1. Measure the sides where you will staple and screw washers to hold the metal fabric vertically along the wall bottom.
2. Press along the closest horizontal wire by hand and keep pressing the cloth all along the width of the cloth.
3. Do the same for the vertical section and decide where to cut the corner to create a fold. (right photograph above)
4. This fold will slide over or under at the corner (I went underneath; left photo above).
5. Add screws over washers and staples where needed.

Attach with screws and washers through all layers of hardware cloth. I overlaid the “floor” hardware cloth overtop of the sidewall hardware cloth pieces, then re-screwed all clips and washers back in place. I added more washers where they were needed.

And that’s as far as I have come with this project! I hope to get plants in the flower bed next weekend and Mr. E is making a new wooden bed for the left side as you enter the greenhouse.

To keep cool while working as the sun was pretty hot, I added a large piece of frost cloth clamped to the electrical PVC ribs. That worked great and I think it will also shade the plants later this year. Our lemon and lime trees will sit on the gravel you see here to the right.

On Friday, after moving the long Vego planter bed to its new location at the back of the greenhouse, I laid all of the logs in the bottom of the planter (takes up excess space and saves on buying raised bed dirt). Afterwards, I moved all of the dirt back into the planter. No photos for this but I will share more next time. 🙂

Let me know what you think of this greenhouse so far! Thank you!! <3

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Happy spring hugs,