Greenhouse progress and Big Ridge agriculture

Some of you may know that I’ve been casually growing from seed and selling tree seedlings for the last few years. To date, it’s been a hobby and a very small operation. In 2025, I grew only 30 or so trees, sold about half of them, and gave away the balance to friends. In 2026, I’m relocating the growing operation from our home in Atlanta to Big Ridge and expanding it a good bit.

If you’ve visited recently, you’ve probably noticed the silage tarp where our garden and greenhouse will be. And if you’ve toured the barn, you’ve seen the ribs of our gothic arch greenhouse taking shape.

I’d aimed to have the greenhouse complete by now, but delivery of the clear polycarbonate panels is taking longer than I expected. As we await their arrival, we’re getting everything else squared away. I’d hoped to bring our 2000+ seeds out of stratification and sow them in the greenhouse by the end of December, but it now looks like end of January is more realistic.

I’d thought about buying a kit for the greenhouse, and that probably would have been way smarter and easier than designing and building one from scratch. Hopefully it all comes together ok. It’s been a fun process (many thanks to my son Alex for his help). You can see early designs, progress pictures, and video here. The video from the CNC shop is especially cool.

I would not quite call this proper agriculture, but between our orchard, blueberries, dahlias, the greenhouse, and the 2026 garden, it’s a step in that direction. In the longer term, we’ll introduce some livestock and expand the growing operation from tree seedlings to produce.

Inch by inch, row by row…