Greenhouse

One of our long awaited projects if finally done! Last weekend we finally got our greenhouse up. This isn't what I originally had in mind but it was more affordable and it will work for the short term. The greenhouse is 11'x15'. We were going to make it 12 feet wide but my husband decided he wanted more bow to the arches to allow for water runoff. It took him about a day to build the ends for the greenhouse.Overall it took about 2 days to build.

We hammered pieces of rebar into the ground to hold the ribs in place.

I helped him to stretch the plastic over the end pieces. This is 6 mm UV resistant greenhouse plastic that I ordered online. The company I ordered it from has the plastic in a couple of different widths and will cut it to whatever length you specify. The plastic we ordered was 24' wide.

This is a picture of one of the completed end pieces. Let me just say that trying to move these things into place on a windy day proved interesting.

Now that the ends were in place, all we had to do was pull the plastic over the body of the greenhouse. It wasn't too hard and the wind actually helped by picking it up so we could pull it over the top.

And here is the completed project. To anchor the sides, we rolled 2x4's in the plastic and then placed the concrete blocks on them. We used 3/4" pipe for the ribs and a 2" pipe along the top of the ribs to add stability. With the plastic simply being rolled, we can roll up the sides if needed for ventilation. If you look closely, you'll notice there are dark white spots along the first arch. Those are greenhouse clips that we used to hold the plastic to the frame.

As you can see, this is a picture of the inside of the greenhouse. We haven't built a door yet so we simply cut the plastic so we can get in and out. The plan is to cut off the plastic and use it to stretch across the door. We used 2x4's that were cut in half to brace the ribs. We used zip ties to help hold them in place and then they were screwed to the plastic pipe. On either side of the door are 8' T posts that give additional stability to the ends.

Overall we are very pleased with it. We have moved everything inside that we need to make the soil cubes. We have a small table that we will be using until my husband can build a larger one. Now we can finally get started on our seeds! This fall we will add a bed inside that we can use to grow some things in over the winter. Even though we didn't have this done as early as I would have liked, at least I know I can look forward to getting my plants started a lot earlier next year!