How To Build a Greenhouse Cheap - Start With This Essential Guide
How to build a greenhouse cheap starts with careful but fun planning. Cheap doesn't mean limited, you still have a lot of options to choose from. How cheap do you want to go?
Aquarium Greenhouse
Get an old fish tank 10 to 40 gallons or as big as you want and turn it upside down over your veggies. Yea, no joke. This works especially in cooler weather. This is so easy to try out.
Do a little experiment and place a fish tank over some of your existing crops and don't use a fish tank with the rest. Compare the growth rates yourself. You'll be surprised. "Greenhouse Tanks" are mobile and you can squeeze them in smaller spaces.
Hoop House
With a few planks of wood and PVC pipe, you can construct a larger greenhouse. Now visualize this. Your wooden planks will make up your area of holding your soil and plants. You then bend the pipes to create and arch or hoop. For more stability you'll bend more hoops from one side of to the other, thus forming "ribs". Place some greenhouse plastic over the pipes and there you go.
Raised Bed
If you have a little more carpentry skills, with more wooden planks, you can build a raised bed. You'll first want to basically build a box without a lid with your planks. Heights usually range between 2-3 feet. Most raised beds have a hitched lid, but you can place some greenhouse plastic over the top and will do more than enough to keep your crops toasty in the winter.
Fancy Equipment
You don't need high tech lights, heaters, or ventilation systems. All of the builds above rely on the power of Mother Nature. You only need to think about watering. Try to stay as close as possible to any watering source and if possible, an electrical source.
Note
Without making things complicated, some basics you need to understand. Be sure you're greenhouse has access to plenty of sunlight, especially during the winter.
Don't forget about your frost date. Time your greenhouse so it will be ready right before your coldest months. And last but not least, start small and keep it cheap. It is so much easier to scale up, than it is to start with a bigger build that might just frustrate you and thus, never completing it.
Now it's not within the scope of this article to give you step-by-step plans to build a greenhouse. If you have limited carpentry skills and want to build your own attractive and affordable greenhouse...
Aquarium Greenhouse
Get an old fish tank 10 to 40 gallons or as big as you want and turn it upside down over your veggies. Yea, no joke. This works especially in cooler weather. This is so easy to try out.
Do a little experiment and place a fish tank over some of your existing crops and don't use a fish tank with the rest. Compare the growth rates yourself. You'll be surprised. "Greenhouse Tanks" are mobile and you can squeeze them in smaller spaces.
Hoop House
With a few planks of wood and PVC pipe, you can construct a larger greenhouse. Now visualize this. Your wooden planks will make up your area of holding your soil and plants. You then bend the pipes to create and arch or hoop. For more stability you'll bend more hoops from one side of to the other, thus forming "ribs". Place some greenhouse plastic over the pipes and there you go.
Raised Bed
If you have a little more carpentry skills, with more wooden planks, you can build a raised bed. You'll first want to basically build a box without a lid with your planks. Heights usually range between 2-3 feet. Most raised beds have a hitched lid, but you can place some greenhouse plastic over the top and will do more than enough to keep your crops toasty in the winter.
Fancy Equipment
You don't need high tech lights, heaters, or ventilation systems. All of the builds above rely on the power of Mother Nature. You only need to think about watering. Try to stay as close as possible to any watering source and if possible, an electrical source.
Note
Without making things complicated, some basics you need to understand. Be sure you're greenhouse has access to plenty of sunlight, especially during the winter.
Don't forget about your frost date. Time your greenhouse so it will be ready right before your coldest months. And last but not least, start small and keep it cheap. It is so much easier to scale up, than it is to start with a bigger build that might just frustrate you and thus, never completing it.
Now it's not within the scope of this article to give you step-by-step plans to build a greenhouse. If you have limited carpentry skills and want to build your own attractive and affordable greenhouse...
