I built a greenhouse for my tortoise.

Finished product first. I live southeast Virginia about 5 miles inland. I've kept reptiles most of my life now and our sulcata tortoise was finally due for a permanent outdoor home. (As opposed to coming inside overwinter.) We have mild winters, but it's cold enough that climate control is necessary to keep our African tortoise outside safely and comfortable.

The foundation. It was much harder to put together than I expected. I'm not particularly handy and I got my first attempt at leveling the ground and working with 4x6s with this project.

The bottom half of the greenhouse and the end of a day's work. I repositioned the foundation a little so the left side in the following pictures faces southward. It was a little disconcerting to see how flimsy things were before the roof was installed.

The next morning I installed what would be the roof, it was nice to see things coming together and made me feel a little more accomplished. It was much sturdier then which was a huge relief.

All the roof panels installed. This was the point where I started to see just how hot it got in these things. It felt like an oven.

I installed some steel shelves. My wife loves growing plants and our tortoise loves eating them, so this was my solution to allow year-round growth of her plants while not allowing the tortoise to damage them.

Here's the removable ramp. It's not much really but we needed something to help him over the 8 inch lip into and out of the greenhouse while the weather is still nice.

Oscar approves. He is always very wary of new things but is usually quite confident to climb on things with me around.

I installed a few heat lamps and ceramic heat emitters, and I moved his dog house into the greenhouse as it is something I've comfortable heated for him in previous years. It is likely the last year he will fit in it, but I wanted to have something familiar to me while I heat this much larger space.

Tortoise tax. This is Oscar. I adopted him from a friend after his reptile room lost power for days in a bad winter storm. Everything he owned passed, except for Oscar. He was much smaller then so it was something of a miracle he too didn't perish. Oscar is quite healthy now and has grown to about 18 pounds. And, while the process is slow, he will in time be much, much bigger.

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