Over a year ago, we bought some broccoli and cabbage. When we discovered how cold it was going to get, we realized they would die if left outside. So, we rummaged around and found some poles and rope and bought a small roll of visquine plastic from the store. We set up a make-shift tent type greenhouse by stringing two poles together and then anchoring the plastic down on the sides with some bricks. We put a light inside the "greenhouse" to keep it warm enough through the frosty night.
Over the following months, we acquired more plants. On days when it was too hot, we just took the cover off the greenhouse and put it back up when it was too cold. Pretty soon, the plastic started to tear and the number of plants exceeded the amount of space undercover.
We built a bigger greenhouse using the visquine, some 2x4's and the small fenced area of the backyard. Our greenhouse is now 8'x24'. The fence creates the side frame, 5 2x4's attach to the fence and center beam supported by 5 2x4's standing in the ground. We've replaced the visquine 3 times in the last year and a half. The sun weakens it and the wind pulls it up over time. We plan to replace the visquine eventually with panels, but for now, the visquine is what we can afford. 1 box of 100' of visquine is only a few dollars more than a 25' roll and can cover the greenhouse twice, so that's how we buy it now.
Inside the green house, there's a fan mounted over the doorway. It's one of those 2 fan units that goes in a room window instead of an air conditioning unit. It runs non-stop in the summer and only during the day in the winter. When we can, I want to put it on solar power, but for now, it just runs on an electric extension cord.
Underground between the backdoor and the greenhouse is an electric line, a water hose, and a duct for our dryer vent. The electric line is used for the fan in the summer, the heaters in the winter, and the air pumps for the fish tanks. We bought heaters that turn on and off according to the temperature. The water line is used for a hose to water plants and a timer to run misters hung from the rafters to add moisture to the air and cool the greenhouse. The dryer vent is on a Y connector with a screw cap. In the summer, the cap is on the greenhouse end of the vent. In the winter, the cap is on the side of the Y under the house where the dryer would normally vent. The dryer provides warm moist air, that would normally be wasted anyway, to the greenhouse where the plants enjoy it.
Inside the greenhouse, the plants are in pots elevated off the ground on whatever shelving can be made out of available materials, closet organizers, scrapped shelving unit pieces, bricks, cinder blocks, boards, etc. A few months ago, I found a sturdy, old, wooden cabinet on the side of the road and it's now a perfect work surface and storage space for all things gardening except the seeds. We have two fish tanks in the greenhouse as well, a 75 gal koi tank and a kiddie pool turned into a tilapia farm (we hope). The fish tanks originally hoped to create aquaponics are now more to regulate temperature and grow water plants to feed the birds. A recent addition to the greenhouse is the weed cloth on the "floor." Last year we had horrible issues with pests in the greenhouse. The hope is that the weed cloth will keep down the weeds which should help control the pests.
Over the outside of the visquine is another layer of weed cloth. It does cut down on the amount of sun in the greenhouse, but it also cuts down on the temperature and solar wear of the visquine. The weed cloth is stapled down over the visquine over a string. The string helps keep the staples from tearing through the other layers and it also makes it easier to pull the staples up when it's time to replace the visquine.
The greenhouse isn't perfect, but all together, I think we spent around $200 for the structure and about $150 for the lines, heaters, fans, water system, etc. If you bought a 24'x8' greenhouse kit, you'd spend several thousand dollars. The greenhouse provides us with supplemental food for us and the animals. It also teaches our kids about food and encourages them to eat more vegetables. They'll eat almost anything if they know it came from the garden, no matter what their preconceived notions about it are.
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