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Post by Poopface on Jan 27, 2018 9:12:58 GMT -5
As part of our second year house/property development, my wife and I are looking into building a greenhouse. We want a fixed structure rather than a hoop house. Although we have a three-seasons-room on the house, unfortunately, it’s on the north side of the house.
I’ve done a lot of reading on the topic, but am by no means any kind of expert.
Has anyone ever built one before? Any loss is learned that I should be mindful of?
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2018 9:35:39 GMT -5
Helped my grandad when I was a kid. The most I remember is that it should be at the sunniest part of the garden. His garden was quite big, so able to build away from the trees (roots can be the devil to dig through) plus access to light. You'll want access to all sides, for cleaning and light. It's not so much putting one up, but maintenance afterwards.
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Post by dangit on Jan 27, 2018 10:00:58 GMT -5
Poopface I have one that I use year round. I got it about 3 years ago. As the previous poster said, maintenance is key. Also one that offers a good ventilation system. Snow is a problem if you have that in your area. Need to keep it cleaned off. It has a lot of weight to it. I bought a pre fab from Harbor Freight. Not sure if you have one available near you and I did end up ordering one from their catalog as it was faster. Not the best in the world, but it works and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money right off the bat for an experiment and it was easy to assemble. Hot boxes are another way to go and can be used year round. Then sun is definitely important, but that is why you need ventilation so you can control the heat in spring summer and fall. A great compliment to my garden, as I can start my seedlings and have them ready for planting and producing more much faster. There are several sites about them available on the web. Do a search and pick one you like is the best thing I can tell you on that. Hope this helps, ?
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Post by dangit on Jan 27, 2018 11:40:16 GMT -5
Oh my Poopface I almost forgot. During the summer I use it to grow herbs. Sage, Thyme, Basil and a lot of others. Much cheaper than buying those over priced dry ones in the grocery store and fresh. For racks in the green house I bought some 2x2’s and some 3/8” plywood and constructed some stair step racks for the plants. That way everything gets some sun. ? |
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Post by miscanthus on Jan 27, 2018 16:03:56 GMT -5
I work in the horticulture industry. We have 50 greenhouses at my company. Everything from plastic hoop houses to $250K glass structures. We recently put up a small 8x12 glass greenhouse for a butterfly display. The unit is well made and reasonably priced. It would work well at a residence. Here's the company's link. www.wintergardenz.com.au/store/c1/Featured_Products.html |
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Post by Poopface on Jan 28, 2018 7:52:10 GMT -5
Thanks for the info, gents. I appreciate it. The reminders about ventilation are important ones and will be taken to heart. A little bit of background on me. I have a decent-sized garden that produced pretty well last year. I have also started a small orchard on the property and converted our overgrown south-facing front landscape bed into an edible landscape that has some fruit, a lot of herbs, and some artichokes with the idea of having beauty and a variety of plant sizes and leaf shapes while still being able to eat from every plant in the bed. Being adjacent to a lengthy brick wall and bordered by a concrete driveway with a rock border, I'm somewhat hoping the heat load will help contribute to a microclimate condition. For my wife and I, we are hoping to use the greenhouse for plant starting as well as to have some greenery inside since my wife tends to get the blues during the wintery months. Being in southern Maryland, we don't get as much snow as a number of other states, but it does come here and there and occasionally in quantity so that'll need to be monitored. I looked at the houses dangit mentioned sold by Harbor Freight (we have one not too far from work) and decided that the ones of the footprint we have in mind are a bit on the short side unless you stay in the middle. The picture of the Asian (a culture not generally known for being tall) teenager standing next to it with her head only a foot from the peak didn't give me any faith that I wouldn't need a hard hat to work inside. I also looked at the nice ones offered up by miscanthus. Unfortunately, all the ones I saw were considerably outside my budget. Also, being in the USA, I think I'd be hard pressed to take advantage of the warranty from the Australian product. We've decided that we're going to build our own just off the driveway pad. I'm a bit nervous about the idea of putting it under a maple tree (potential damage), but it's on the south side and the branches are all pretty high up. Despite the canopy, that area still gets a lot of light normally, and full light through the timeline of fall through early spring when we'd really need it.  We're going to do it "on the cheap" as much as possible. We're removing the juniper ourselves (we've already removed a ton from the front bed, around the pool, and where the veg garden is now) and will be installing a base of cinder blocks on bases of stone to set the frame on. I'm sure there will be some roots from the maple, but I've been surprised at the lack of roots I've encountered from that tree in other projects. Hopefully, my luck holds. Yesterday, we bought fourteen wood-framed windows and a door with glass on the upper half off Craigslist that are in reasonably good shape. Originally, it was a good deal as advertised, but after unloading the door from the seller's husband's work truck ourselves and chatting with her some more, she offered up a deal for the whole lot for $100. Most/all need to be sc「grape」, sanded, trimmed of excess wood (notably the side guides), recaulked, and repainted.  The plan is to do 2x4 framing with the base out of 2x6's for rigidity. Subfloor will probably be out of 5/8" plywood; we haven't decided on flooring. We're planning on installing barn siding for the exterior surface outside our framing and using clear corrugated plastic for the roof. I need to figure out how to seal the underside of the corrugated plastic to help control moisture (and pest habitation inside. We will need to sort out ventilation as you all mentioned. runamok - access for maintenance should be good. The landscape bed the juniper is in is currently 25' long and between 5' and 7' deep in parts. We intend to have a landscape border (either landscape timber or stone) around it with small perennials in the space. As you can see from the top picture, we have our driveway pad along where one side will be. Once it's built and painted, I anticipate I'll be building shelving. We plan to get some lidded 5 gallon buckets to use for thermal loading inside. It'll be nice to have a separate place to start seedlings. dangit, you're right. Right now I have wire shelving in my bathroom (largest water-safe space in the house with southern sun) with fluorescent tube plant lights overhead to perform that function. |
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Post by DarkVagabond on Jan 28, 2018 8:24:49 GMT -5
Thanks for the info, gents. I appreciate it. The reminders about ventilation are important ones and will be taken to heart. A little bit of background on me. I have a decent-sized garden that produced pretty well last year. I have also started a small orchard on the property and converted our overgrown south-facing front landscape bed into an edible landscape that has some fruit, a lot of herbs, and some artichokes with the idea of having beauty and a variety of plant sizes and leaf shapes while still being able to eat from every plant in the bed. Being adjacent to a lengthy brick wall and bordered by a concrete driveway with a rock border, I'm somewhat hoping the heat load will help contribute to a microclimate condition. For my wife and I, we are hoping to use the greenhouse for plant starting as well as to have some greenery inside since my wife tends to get the blues during the wintery months. Being in southern Maryland, we don't get as much snow as a number of other states, but it does come here and there and occasionally in quantity so that'll need to be monitored. I looked at the houses dangit mentioned sold by Harbor Freight (we have one not too far from work) and decided that the ones of the footprint we have in mind are a bit on the short side unless you stay in the middle. The picture of the Asian (a culture not generally known for being tall) teenager standing next to it with her head only a foot from the peak didn't give me any faith that I wouldn't need a hard hat to work inside. I also looked at the nice ones offered up by miscanthus . Unfortunately, all the ones I saw were considerably outside my budget. Also, being in the USA, I think I'd be hard pressed to take advantage of the warranty from the Australian product. We've decided that we're going to build our own just off the driveway pad. I'm a bit nervous about the idea of putting it under a maple tree (potential damage), but it's on the south side and the branches are all pretty high up. Despite the canopy, that area still gets a lot of light normally, and full light through the timeline of fall through early spring when we'd really need it. We're going to do it "on the cheap" as much as possible. We're removing the juniper ourselves (we've already removed a ton from the front bed, around the pool, and where the veg garden is now) and will be installing a base of cinder blocks on bases of stone to set the frame on. I'm sure there will be some roots from the maple, but I've been surprised at the lack of roots I've encountered from that tree in other projects. Hopefully, my luck holds. Yesterday, we bought fourteen wood-framed windows and a door with glass on the upper half off Craigslist that are in reasonably good shape. Originally, it was a good deal as advertised, but after unloading the door from the seller's husband's work truck ourselves and chatting with her some more, she offered up a deal for the whole lot for $100. Most/all need to be sc「grape」, sanded, trimmed of excess wood (notably the side guides), recaulked, and repainted. The plan is to do 2x4 framing with the base out of 2x6's for rigidity. Subfloor will probably be out of 5/8" plywood; we haven't decided on flooring. We're planning on installing barn siding for the exterior surface outside our framing and using clear corrugated plastic for the roof. I need to figure out how to seal the underside of the corrugated plastic to help control moisture (and pest habitation inside. We will need to sort out ventilation as you all mentioned. runamok - access for maintenance should be good. The landscape bed the juniper is in is currently 25' long and between 5' and 7' deep in parts. We intend to have a landscape border (either landscape timber or stone) around it with small perennials in the space. As you can see from the top picture, we have our driveway pad along where one side will be. Once it's built and painted, I anticipate I'll be building shelving. We plan to get some lidded 5 gallon buckets to use for thermal loading inside. It'll be nice to have a separate place to start seedlings. dangit , you're right. Right now I have wire shelving in my bathroom (largest water-safe space in the house with southern sun) with fluorescent tube plant lights overhead to perform that function. So nice to see the woods on the background  I live in a city apartment, so Iâm sorry mate, for this sort of stuff Iâm useless as 「huge tracts of land」 on a bull.... |
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Post by Poopface on Jan 28, 2018 8:57:41 GMT -5
So nice to see the woods on the background I live in a city apartment, so Iâm sorry mate, for this sort of stuff Iâm useless as 「huge tracts of land」 on a bull.... It's been an iterative process here. I was in an apartment from '02-'05, a rental townhouse from '05-'06, my own townhouse from '06-'15, without a house from '15-'16 (sold the TH), then moved in here in Aug '16. As is generally the case with life, I've been gradually learning about gardening and building stuff, particularly since '09 when we started renting our first community garden plot. When we started looking for our prospective homestead, we needed something within a reasonable commute to my job, in a generally agrarian-oriented part of the state, with a community-focused environment with a property that balanced out clear-cut land (for gardening) while still having some trees. Our property is only really usable for gardening for about half of it where it has a gentle slop toward the back of the property. The back half is consumed by a bit of a gorge that is completely wooded. I'm debating whether to plant ginseng in there, but don't know whether a) deer eat it (because we have deer here) or b) it's considered to be invasive. |
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Post by dangit on Jan 28, 2018 10:05:56 GMT -5
Poopface that sounds like a good plan and a good buy. If I was a young man I definitely could see going that way in building one. Being 6’ 2” mine is a little cramped. Luckily my wife is only 5’ 2” and she enjoys the garden as much as I do. Good luck and sounds like you are well on your way. ?
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Post by miscanthus on Jan 28, 2018 14:07:00 GMT -5
Good luck on the project. Be sure to post some pics when it's done.
One more thing, you may want to consider a crushed, compacted stone base or patio blocks for the floor with a drain in the middle of the structure. A wood floor may eventually give you trouble with water run off and a high moisture environment.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2018 14:32:16 GMT -5
I'm jealous. Here in San Diego, they build 3000sqft homes on 5000sqft lots. If I trip and fall in my backyard I land on my neighbors property.
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Post by Poopface on Jan 28, 2018 17:30:15 GMT -5
One more thing, you may want to consider a crushed, compacted stone base or patio blocks for the floor with a drain in the middle of the structure. A wood floor may eventually give you trouble with water run off and a high moisture environment. The idea of a crushed stone floor is something we've talked about. With the "foundation" being on a slight hill, that would be a bit problematic. I guess I'd excavate in the rectangle, drop in crushed rock, lay out cinder blocks level and in a rectangle, drive in rebar, drop in stone inside the cinder blocks, then fill in the remainder of the rectangle with a few inches of (3"-4") the crushed rock to allow for enough drainage and to, potentially, add some thermal mass. The downside is it's a lot more work and adds to the expense. I had hoped to get away (cheap and a lot less labor) with just using indoor/outdoor carpet for the floor. I'm jealous. Here in San Diego, they build 3000sqft homes on 5000sqft lots. If I trip and fall in my backyard I land on my neighbors property. That's its own kind of challenge, but there are options. Depending on the layout of the property and orientation to the sun, I'd be going for vining crops and a garden wall. I'd also tinker around with espaliered fruit trees as that makes them not take up much space. With little/no frost, you could also do hydroponics outside. You could do figs, but that also takes up a fair amount of real estate. Raspberries also drive nicely in a row. Having a super long growing season, though, allows for two or maybe even three crops of "summer" produce. Also, being where you are opens the door to some tropical options that I can't even consider in Maryland. I'd love to grow avocado, for example, but that's not an option here. And my greenhouse won't be tall enough to accommodate it. |
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Post by Poopface on Jan 31, 2018 10:32:27 GMT -5
I haven't started construction, yet. I've been researching details about trying to grow the Wurtz (aka "Little Cado") avocado in there. From what I've read, they grow to 8'-10' tall, but haven't found any consistent details among a variety of websites and Cooperative Extensions that detail the canopy size.
Right now, I'm contemplating the feasibility of countersinking a cavity in the crushed rock "floor" to set an oversized pot (the sites commonly recommend something the size of a half-wine barrel) into. By doing that, it'd save me ~2' of height and would help regulate the root ball temperatures somewhat.
Trying to avoid having to build a really tall structure. At least part of that reasoning is to keep the wife from killing the concept.
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Post by mccawesome on Jan 31, 2018 13:13:16 GMT -5
I mean I grew some “tomatoes” in a closet once ??
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Post by nightmarepatrol on Jan 31, 2018 17:11:34 GMT -5
I would love to have a garden and so would all the deer, raccoons and voracious insects in the area (Florida). One of our neighbors has a greenhouse and to keep the cost down they wend DIY and used plexiglass. Sure it gets cloudy, but it's practical during hurricane season. I just know they made a jig a pumped the all frames out in one size. They made some extras and got extra plexi as well. I have no idea what they did for a floor though, but I do know it's up about 8" off the ground.
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Post by Shahmatt on Feb 7, 2018 20:56:59 GMT -5
Amazon sells furniture grade PVC that's used for this sort of stuff - snap clamps, fittings and such. But perhaps you are looking for something more permanent and nailed together. On the other hand, you could test out the concept using PVC and take it to the next level if you are comfortable.
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Post by Poopface on Feb 8, 2018 9:40:34 GMT -5
Amazon sells furniture grade PVC that's used for this sort of stuff - snap clamps, fittings and such. But perhaps you are looking for something more permanent and nailed together. On the other hand, you could test out the concept using PVC and take it to the next level if you are comfortable. That's interesting to know. I always have one project or another floating around my mind. I might make use of that in the future. We're actually looking to do something more permanent for this greenhouse, though. |
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Post by Poopface on Jun 29, 2023 8:38:42 GMT -5
Necropost update All was well until the wife started complaining about lack of conditioning in the still-in-planning greenhouse. Note that this came after we removed all the juniper bushes from the earlier pictures. I proposed providing heat via a small wood burning stove or rocket mass heater. She didn't like that because she was afraid it'd burn down. I proposed a propane heat source, instead. She didn't like that because she was afraid it'd blow up or a gas leak would cause asphyxiation. I mentioned running power from our electrical panel to the greenhouse for resistance heating of water barrels. She didn't want to spend the money. So I thought and I planned and came up with a solution. A walipini. A walipini or sunken-earth greenhouse uses the stable sub-frost-depth soil for conditioning. Think of it like a heat pump. Because temps are consistently a bit over 50F, it automatically regulates the hot temps downward and the cold temps above freezing assuming the greenhouse is relatively insulated. To do that, however, I needed to find a new location. After surveying the property for somewhere with good southern-facing sunlight, not too far from the house, and with a ability to have the north and east sides insulated w/ soil I found a location. See below picture from Feb 24, 2019. I'd cleared all the vegetation and started digging the outline of the box.
 To avoid needing to pull permits, I planned to make the greenhouse foundation be as close to but under the 150 square foot threshold as possible with dimensions just under 10'x15'. The plan was to dig just a bit under the 34" frost depth, pour a foundation, build up courses of cinder blocks to get 2-3 courses above grade, then stick-build a roof and walls above that. Because the property slopes toward the greenhouse, I also dug another 1' all the way around the foundation such that I could install a drain around the perimeter then a trench 50' into the woods to exhaust the water into the ravine on running through the back of the property. My plan was to construct it in such a way that I could also do geothermal conditioning via forced air once I could get a small solar panel to provide the power with the tubing roughed-in under the gravel floor during the initial construction.
Another photo from Sept 2019
This is the last photo I took of the hand dug pit taken July 2020. Yes, I should have just rented an excavator and gotten it done. I was stupid. I ended up wearing myself out such that I herniated my abdomen when I lifted my then 3 yr old into the tub for a bath after a long day of digging. All the soil was going to get piled back up against the north and east walls (no windows) for insulation and would then have grass, clover, and other ground cover planted there.
 The pit finally got to 4' deep. I also sourced 350 cinder blocks from my childhood plant nursery when the owners got too old to keep up with everything who elected to close the business when they couldn't find people to buy the business. All were on my driveway pad awaiting commencement of the build. With COVID being "A Thing" and the pace of life accelerating like a runaway freight train, I had a sanity check and started wondering if maybe I was biting off a big maintenance problem. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I needed to pause the project. So the pit sat for 3 years. I started filling it back in a few months ago by dumping assorted yard debris, cut down trees, and other soil back into the hole. Now the wife wants to build a greenhouse, but is willing to entertain other approach to doing things. I'm back designing a greenhouse, but on a smaller, simpler scale. I'd still love to try the geothermal approach some time in the future, but it doesn't appear to be in the cards at this time. My constant requirements levied upon me are that I am not allowed to overengineer it, keep the price down as much as possible, and make it cute.
Since revisiting the topic over the last few weeks, I've found a new location and started researching things. Unfortunately, in the new location Bermuda grass is a real problem. I won't just be able to sink 4x4's and start building. I need to install a concrete foundation deep enough that the Bermuda grass roots won't tunnel underneath (at least 6") and above grade to buy time to catch/trim what's above ground and also to redirect what can be considerable quantities of water dumped on us by rain storms. To try to curb cost while also giving the flexibility of reusing the foundation for a potentially more-involved future build, I planned to install a sill on top of the foundation then build a cattle panel hoop house over top. That got shot down by Wifey: "hoop houses are ugly." So.....I started looking at greenhouse kits. Many (including those mentioned in earlier posts in this thread) are way outside my affordability. I had some hope in getting a Harbor Freight kit then beefing it up. There are 10'W x 12' L x 10.5'H and 6'W x 8'L x 6.5'T hard-walled kits. While I like the possible size of the larger one, the width would almost completely fill the area I have in mind making work around it pretty much impossible. I entertained getting two of the smaller ones, installing side-by-side, and tying the two together to essentially create a single 8' x 12' greenhouse. I thought about engineering a multi-tier course of 4x4's or similar material on top of the foundation to make the greenhouse less confining. Unfortunately, both have reputations for being susceptible to wind damage and some lightly-debatable reputation for the panels not lasting all that long. A number of youtube videos I've seen have either implied or outright come out and said, "for all the mods, corrections, failings, and replacements we've had to put into our Harbor Freight kits we would have just been better off building from scratch."
So.....now I'm back to designing one myself. Part of it is to put together plans. Part is to try to get a better sense for cost.
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Post by Poopface on Jun 29, 2023 17:33:10 GMT -5
Just showed Wifey something I was using as a bit of inspiration and she said, "Oh, that's pretty. I like that! Build that." She smiled, too.
Bonus.
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Post by shadethefluffmech on Jun 29, 2023 20:38:11 GMT -5
I have nothing to contribute i just came to say
House House House House House House House House House House House
Also sweet hole
Holes are cool
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Post by shadethefluffmech on Jun 29, 2023 20:42:52 GMT -5
Geothermal greenhouse??
My sleep deprived brain cant comprehend that
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Post by TerrorStorm on Jun 29, 2023 21:27:01 GMT -5
Never built one but put a few baseballs through my mothers! We had a big one on our farm and unfortunately it seemed to be a target for baseballs, rocks, rifles and anything else 13 year old kids could get their hands on. My brother and I caught endless hell for our poor aim.
My advice is put if far from young kids, grandchildren or any other destructive parties.
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Post by Poopface on Jun 30, 2023 4:51:25 GMT -5
Geothermal greenhouse?? My sleep deprived brain cant comprehend that Yeah! It’s very cool. This was one of my inspirations. His is on a far larger scale than I was attempting, though. |
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I live in a city apartment, so Iâm sorry mate, for this sort of stuff Iâm useless as 「huge tracts of land」 on a bull....
