The completion of a new greenhouse at Straughn High School is expected by the first of the year, and students are helping to construct it.

“The county helped to lay the foundation,” SHS Ag teacher Rodney Wyrosdick said. “The next step is we’re going to get a concrete foundation for it and put the structural pieces into that. We’ll also have to run the utilities out there.”

The students will have to help put the greenhouse together with Wyrosdick, he said.

“All of my classes will help to some degree,” Wyrosdick said. “It was real hot when we put the other one together, and that tempered their enthusiasm a little bit. But I think they’re excited for it.”

The greenhouse will be 30×70 feet and will be different than the existing “hoop” house.

“We’re doing different things with them,” Wyrosdick said. “This one will allow us to plant trays. The other one doesn’t have shelves; you plant in the ground. So this one will be a real greenhouse.”

He said the students would be planting vegetable trays, ferns and some ornamental flowers like pansies and begonias.

The plan is to sell some of the items and use the money to fund the school. Wyrosdick said he hopes that some of the money will help to modernize the shop he teaches from.

“We’d like to show them how to do it themselves,” Wyrosdick said. “Have the ability to grow their own gardens. Also, we have some partnerships with the science and botany classes.”

There are some nursery employers around, he said, and also Bonnie Plants is nearby.

The total estimate for the project, Wyrosdick said, would be roughly $25,000.

He said $18,000 came from a career tech grant, which purchased the greenhouse kit, and many of the other parts of the construction have or will be donated, including the county’s dirt foundation.

He said he estimates the concrete foundation to be between $2,000 to $3,00, and wood will also be to be purchased for assembly of the greenhouse kit.

He said the school’s maintenance crew will help run the utilities to the new greenhouse.