Sunday, January 26, 2014

DIY Greenhouse for Starting Plants

Here in north central Texas 2 days ago it was in the teens, today it's 73 degrees.  I need to start some seeds for the garden so plants can mature before the 110+ degrees show up this summer.  

I found several greenhouses on Pinterest that looked easy enough for me and Dad to build.  Ours used just one cattle panel (50" x 16') with one bottom section cut off so it would fit our 50" x 8' space.  

The cattle panel is attached to a treated 2x4 with fence staples at both ends.  Those ends are connected with 3 long screws to 8' treated 2x4's.  Then 3/4" pvc is zip tied to the top edges of the cattle panel.  

For framing on both sides we used scrap lumber, basically 2x2's.  his was screwed into the base and we used plumber's metal tape to make loops to screw the wood into place.  Pipe wrap covers the pvc and is zip tied in place.  

6 mil plastic that comes in a 15' x 25' sheet was stapled in place on one end and wrapped over.  I tried to makes the folds from the curvature lay so that any water would not sit in them.  There was one area on the back side where we had to piece in some plastic and we used the new Gorilla tape to seal all loose edges.

We got inside and walked it over to where we wanted it.  I need to fill in with some scrap bricks on the low side and I'll be building the door this week.  This is already a nice warm place for baby plants!

This small greenhouse took about 10-12 hours with lots of breaks to look at our handiwork and about $60 in materials not including the scrap lumber, screws and staples we already had.  And we are using scrap made shelves Dad already had built to put inside.

1 comment:

Judy S. said...

Fun! Wow, that's quite a temperature range.

A Quilt Repair While I Was On Vacation

 I went to visit my parents for a month and while I was there I repaired a quilt. Sorry the image is not very good, it was taken with my pho...