My husband divided the huge goat barn we have (1800 square feet) because I only have 3 goats now and don’t need that many stalls. He put a dividing wall halfway and put a floor in one side. Then he knocked out the south facing wall on that side and put recycled glass doors and windows on half of that, from floor to ceiling.
He had formerly been using that side of the barn as a
workshop, but built a new workshop so was moving stuff out of it. I put in screens to dry the hand cut tree fodder and
hay we hand cut. Worked great. The barn is on a hill, has great ventilation and air flow, and that south facing window heated it just right, and also there is a small
wood heater in there.
Then I started putting a few potted vegetables in, but you know how that works. It always gets out of hand and I never know when to stop. So now it is full of plants; sugar snap peas, the pots of ginger that can’t grow outside in winter, pots and grow bags of Irish potatoes, cuttings from the sweet potatoes I’d already harvested, and a tray of cucumbers. I dug up, pruned back and potted out a tomato and a pepper plant, both of which are blooming now in 18 degree weather in December. The collards, spinach, broccoli and lettuce can take the cold, but I don’t know if we can keep it warm
enough for the summer stuff as it gets colder. Sometimes it gets 7 below zero Fahrenheit here, but not every winter and if so not more than a day or two. He did a dropped ceiling and since he mills lumber from
trees on our property, had plenty of nice boards to better insulate the walls, but due to the way it is built there are still some air leaks we can’t do anything to stop. One problem is the big sliding door which has two inches space between it and the inside wall. I hung a big quilt over that on a rod which swings in to open it, or I can just lift a corner when I come in. We did have to put in a few grow
lights as the winter days are too short for the heat and light loving plants. I need a
RMH!
Another downside is that the humidity is too high now with all the plants and I won’t be able to use it as a drying room. However, I will have a few fresh veggies over winter I would not have had otherwise. The key element here is having good soil to grow in, with plenty of organic matter and minerals.