This crafty woman turned her swimming pool into a greenhouse

That's because her old pool is now her new greenhouse and is full of growing vegetables and herbs.

Her 12-year-old above ground pool's wall was punctured last summer when a lawnmower blade sent a rock through it. Then the filtration pump broke down. Emerson knew the pool was unusable for swimming.

But what to do with a 20-foot-diameter, four-foot tall pool?

Deb Emerson has turned her old above ground swimming pool into a greenhouse. Credit: Deb Emerson

"I looked at it this spring and knew it would take a lot of work to take it down plus there was like a foot of sand under it and sand is not good for growing," Emerson said. "It was a lot of space and what to do with it?"

Emerson said raising a garden on her rocky property has always been a challenge and over the years she resigned herself to container planting if she wanted fresh vegetables or herbs. Then, while looking at the pool in spring, a lightbulb went off.

"All of a sudden I had this vision of making it into a greenhouse and putting a cover over it," she said. "I had all my seedlings going anyway and so far, so good with things growing in there."

Emerson cut out a portion of the pool's side wall to make a door and cut a separate square to install an old box fan for air circulation. She used plastic PVC pipe and sheets of 8mm polycarbonate to fashion a dome roof. Then she took some old beams she had gotten from dismantling an old barn and built three raised beds.

She planted vegetables in the beds and put her herbs in pots she hung from the cover's beams. After struggling to reach those pots to water them, she went to the Dollar Tree store and bought small pulleys. Now those pots can be raised and lowered at her convenience.

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Header Photo Caption: Raised beds inside Deb Emerson's repurposed above ground swimming pool are expanding the variety of what she can plant. Credit: Courtesy of Deb Emerson

Source: Bangor Daily News