During the fall 2021 One Room Challenge®, seasoned ORC participant Angela Nickerson and her family built an absolutely incredible greenhouse from scratch. Angela gave us the latest on this unforgettable project and how she’s been using the greenhouse in the three years since.

Gardening in Colorado brings so many challenges – the altitude, the arid climate, our harsh winters – but the biggest challenge for me as a newish Coloradan is what we call "winter whiplash" – sudden and extreme changes in weather over a very short period of time. Late May snowstorms, for example, or freezes in early September. And since our home does not have a garage, moving plants inside and outside became overwhelming. So, in 2021 we hatched a plan: we were going to build a greenhouse. And we did just that for the Fall, 2021 One Room Challenge.

Of course, we built a room from the ground up! Luckily, it was a dry and cool fall, since we were working outside. My husband, an architect, designed the greenhouse with a butterfly roof which channels rainwater inside to two rain barrels that supply The Greenhouse with water. And the walls are lined with 55 gallon drums filled with water and sealed which act as a battery – heating the room a bit during the night and helping to maintain a more constant temperature.

I spend many happy hours out in The Greenhouse. It's where I start all of my cuttings and seedlings on a scale I have never been able to do before. I also overwinter some beloved plants that aren't hardy here making the greenhouse a bit of a tropical paradise in the winter.

Honestly, building this greenhouse during the ORC changed my life! I am a gardening writer and educator, and I am able to do all that I do so much more successfully, because I have my greenhouse. It is a tool that I use all the time. And it was the encouragement and passion of the ORC community cheering us on that helped us finish this HUGE project on time. So thank you to all of the ORC enthusiasts out there! You are magic! And good luck with your projects!