Summer Lettuce Project at JGTF
The Diana Eisman Greenhouse is Open!
On a hot, sunny day eighteen months ago, Cultivate KC Executive Director Brien Darby unloaded several shovels and a freshly printed banner from the trunk of her car at the corner of North 1st and Walker Avenue in KCK. The empty lot, and future home of the Diana Eisman Community Greenhouse, was filled with bermudagrass, debris, chunks of asphalt and concrete, and on one end sat a ghostly basketball court, long forgotten. With Diana Eisman’s family and colleagues in attendance, Cultivate KC broke ground at the greenhouse site that day. After many months of hard work and dedication, the greenhouse is now open to farmers!
In October of 2023, the first phase of the greenhouse build began. It required measuring and regrading of uneven surface to establish the area where the greenhouse and washstand would sit. The ancient basketball goals were cut out, existing asphalt was removed with a skid steer, and gravel was brought in. Concrete was poured for the area where two 40-foot shipping containers would sit and serve as coolers with a washstand between them for the greenhouse.
Click on the smaller photos to look more closely!
Winter of 2023 brought rain and snow, which made work on the surface where the coolers would be more challenging. It takes 130 feet of straight drive-away room for a 40-foot container to be eased in next to the concrete pad, therefore extra gravel work was required to ensure the shipping containers could be delivered and properly unloaded adjacent to it. After the shipping containers arrived, the much-anticipated greenhouse was delivered! The 6,000 square-foot greenhouse arrived as a kit, with hundreds of metal parts that required assembly. It took about three hours and fifteen people to unload the entire kit off a trailer to be stored in the shipping containers until it was time to build.
Warmer weather after the new year put assembly plans into action, and brackets were welded to attach the washstand roof between the shipping containers. Trusses, the wooden pieces that run the width of the building, and purlins, which run the length, were attached to the brackets and all the washstand lacked was a metal roof at that point. Over at the greenhouse, holes were dug for sixty-eight posts, which would support the walls. With a rented scissor lift, giant arch trusses and purlins for the greenhouse were installed next, and the building took on real shape.
In June 2024, our crew busily installed electrical service, water hydrants, and the highly anticipated washstand roof! Hip boards and baseboards were put into the greenhouse structure, as well as sidewall framing. Sidewalls and endwalls were also constructed to house exhaust fans and shutters, which cool the greenhouse.
Before winter, the gutters joining the two greenhouse bays were attached, and steel side walls and endwalls were constructed, then covered with 8mm polycarbonate panels- durable plastic material. With help from K-State OHREC staff, students, and volunteers, the roof of the greenhouse was successfully attached! The roof is two layers of 6mil polyethylene, which blow up like a balloon inflated with a fan. It is resilient to wind and rain and supplies insulation as well.
Doors and inside appliances were installed just in time before a major winter snowstorm hit- 12 HAF fans, 4 exhaust fans, 4 motorized shutters, and 4 heaters! Staff had to clear the center of the greenhouse of heavy snow because the building did not have electricity quite yet. It was a huge feat, but the roof held strong- an encouraging sign, indeed.
2024 brought great progress in a brief time. Interior gas lines were plumbed, the city came out to inspect interior gas lines, and the gas company set the meter. Electricity was run to all appliances, and it’s all thermostat controlled, meaning that when the thermostat reaches the set temperature, a signal is sent to the motor at the shutters to open and start venting the greenhouse. If the temperature rises three additional degrees, the second stage of the thermostat sends a signal for the exhaust fans to kick on and pull air through the shutters- fascinating technology, folks!
The most recent additions were new greenhouse benches, designed in-house. Readily available chain-link fencing and horse-panels (welded wire sheets you can purchase at a farm supply store) were used for construction. These benches ended up only costing ¼ of the price of traditional professional greenhouse benches! With help from our friends at Evergy’s Green Team, thirty beautiful new greenhouse benches were built for incoming farmers.
Just in the last month, fencing around the perimeter has been installed, and farmers and plants are beginning to occupy the greenhouse. The promise of spring is in the air, and staff members recently met for the first official potluck and meeting to celebrate the cozy new space. Everyone departed in a better mood than when they arrived, for the building offers much more than just square footage to grow starter plants. It houses collective hope for new beginnings.
A HUGE thank you goes out to our Cultivate KC build team, particularly Mark Gawron and Emily Kovar, for all their dedication and hard work, and to the Juniper Gardens staff for always stepping up to assist. Thank you to Cary Rivard for your consultation and labor, and for bringing out K-State OHREC staff and students to help. Thank you to KJett Services and DF Turf & Terrain for going above and beyond on this project.
We’re also grateful for our donation partners who made the project possible including C2FO, the Bloch Family Foundation, William Jewell College, the Tantillo Family Foundation, USDA, Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, Catholic Charities USA, American Farmland Trust, Church of the Resurrection, and Evergy.
To see lots of photos throughout the build process VISIT HERE. Join us for a Grand Opening Happy Hour on April 8th to celebrate this new greenhouse and all the hope it will deliver each spring!
