As a gardener, a greenhouse is one of the most useful pieces of equipment you can have. When we think of greenhouses, we may think only of the big greenhouses that commercial nurseries have, and those are nice, but you can build a greenhouse out of almost anything. Basically, a greenhouse is a frame covered with the appropriate material. While I'll be building a couple of hoop greenhouses this year, those aren't the only kinds of greenhouse there are.
My first greenhouse, The Cube.
The first greenhouse I ever built, and one that I still use, I called The Cube. It was a square steel frame that my father had built for a winery to handle wine barrels. When the winery no longer needed it, dad gave it to me. I covered it with greenhouse film, put a white tarp on top, and voila! I had a greenhouse. It served me well for years. It's small as far as greenhouses go, being only around 90 square feet, but one year I produced almost 400,000 plugs and containers of produce from it. It was the heart and engine of my small farm and small greenhouses continue to be the heart and engine of my garden.
The Cube currently sits idle while I refurbish it, so I needed to set up another small greenhouse. I have a dog kennel that I used to house poultry last year. It's close to the house, and gets sun most of the day, even in the dead of winter. It's partially under an old apple tree, but the tree doesn't interfere with the sun during the winter, and not much in the summer, so it's in a good location, and I've decided to repurpose it as a greenhouse.
Regular greenhouse frames are simple structures. The most common use a bow and post system. There is hardware made for connecting the bows, posts, purlins and struts as well as attaching the greenhouse film. But when you start working with other types of frames, a bit of ingenuity is required as every structure will have its own challenges to overcome.
This may look like a complicated build, but really, as you read through the article, I think that you'll find that it's a pretty simple and straight forward project requiring only basic building skills. If you can pound nails, tie a knot, and operate a couple of basic power tools, you can build something like this. It's just a matter of knowing what you want and being able to think outside the box a bit. Being able to read a tape measure comes in handy too. ;-)
This may look like a complicated build, but really, as you read through the article, I think that you'll find that it's a pretty simple and straight forward project requiring only basic building skills. If you can pound nails, tie a knot, and operate a couple of basic power tools, you can build something like this. It's just a matter of knowing what you want and being able to think outside the box a bit. Being able to read a tape measure comes in handy too. ;-)
Dog kennel greenhouse under construction.
This kennel was given to me years ago and is actually built from the parts from two different kennels. It has two doors and isn't square. It's approximately the same square footage as The Cube (90 square feet, give or take), but not being square, installing a center ridge will be interesting. I'm also going to be building it from as many existing materials as possible. I'll be using Schedule 40 PVC for the bows that will support the top, and nailer boards around the top of the walls to hold the greenhouse film that will cover the structure. I'll also be using suspended shelving instead of benches. The Cube uses benches, which makes it easy for rodents to get to the trays holding the seedlings, a problem that I've been fighting ever since I set up The Cube. Mice find germinating seed and seedlings irresistible, and there are fewer things more frustrating than finding hundreds of seed shells sitting on top of the potting soil, laying open like books after some little varmints have dug them up and eaten the meat of the seed during the night....
The first part of the build is the ridge rail. For this I used some scrap lumber and an old 2" X 8" X 10' plank. The lumber is old, but it'll work for this build. I'll probably remodel the kennel over the winter or next year, as I see things I'd like to improve, so I don't need the lumber to last for more than a year. Because no two sides of the kennel are parallel and because only two sides are the same length, the ridge rail is lashed to one side of its post on one end and the other side of its post on the other end. It looks funky, but it works and is pretty secure.
I like to use a ridge rail for a couple of reasons. First, it helps to support the roof. In this case, I'm using PVC pipe for the bows, and given that the roof will span 9' - 10', I need the extra support. Second, a ridge rail gives me a place to hang lights and/or a coiled water hose. The Cube has a ridge rail made from a steel I-beam. There is a trolley that runs on the beam and that I've hung a coiled hose from. I can't tell you how convenient it is to have the hose up instead of laying on the ground. It's up and out of the way when I'm not using it, so it doesn't get tangled, I don't have to worry about tripping over it when I'm moving things in or out of the greenhouse, and when I am using it, all I have to do is pull it out. This greenhouse won't have a trolley, but it's small enough that I can hang the hose from the center of the rail and use it the same way. If this greenhouse was long, I'd be setting up a trolley or set of rollers on the ridge rail similar to what The Cube has.
Lashing. It's important to lash the ridge rail to the upright both at the top and the bottom, I used two pieces of poly twine for the lashing. The kennel is just a little wider than the ridge rail is long, so I had to scab on some pieces of 2 X 4.
Instead of nailing or screwing the ridge rail to the end braces, I'm lashing them with baling twine. I have livestock and so I buy hay. I always save my baling twine and I won't buy hay baled with sisal or jute twine because they're difficult to work with. Poly twine is smooth and easy to reuse. I use poly twine for all sorts of things. Lashing, netting, braided rope, even lashed hinges can be made out of the stuff. It'll only last for a couple of years out in the elements (it's not UV stable), but for temporary things it can't be beat. And it's recyclable. Poly twine is recycled into more poly twine. I'm particular in how I cut the twine on a bale of hay or straw. I always try to cut it at the knot and hang it up when I remove it from the bale. When I remove what ever I've secured with the twine, all I need to do is untie the knot and undo the lashing, or I can use a knife or scissors and put the twine in the recycling bag if I don't plan on reusing it.
When working on projects like this, it's easier if there are two people, especially when handling something like the ridge rail. But if you're doing it by yourself, you can make yourself an extra hand to support one end of the board while you're working on the other end. I screwed this piece of scrap to the upright to support the end of the rail and loosely tied it to the upright to keep it from sliding off, but not so tight that I couldn't move the rail back and forth to position it.
Supporting the "other" end of the rail.
When working on projects like this, it's easier if there are two people, especially when handling something like the ridge rail. But if you're doing it by yourself, you can make yourself an extra hand to support one end of the board while you're working on the other end. I screwed this piece of scrap to the upright to support the end of the rail and loosely tied it to the upright to keep it from sliding off, but not so tight that I couldn't move the rail back and forth to position it.
While I have a good set of tools, this building project is pretty simple and doesn't require a long list of tools or extensive construction experience. With some ingenuity and basic building skills, you can repurpose an existing structure as a small greenhouse. It's also not a terribly expensive project. I'm using scrap lumber, pallets I got for free, and greenhouse film I already have on hand to build the project, so it won't cost me much. But even if you did have to buy new lumber and film, it still wouldn't cost you as much as buying a regular greenhouse kit, and it can make your garden incredibly productive. I figured that when I built The Cube, I was into that project for less than $150. I have a couple of auto canopies that I will be converting to greenhouses this year and if I had to buy the frames, lumber and film new I would be into them for less than $350 each, which would be pretty reasonable for a 10' X 20' greenhouse. I'll include a list of materials and the tools I'm using to build this greenhouse at the end of the series.
To be continued in Part II framing in the roof.
This is a 4 part series on the conversion of a dog kennel into a greenhouse. When the project is finished and all of the articles are written, I'll post links to all of them here. Articles scheduled for this series:
Part I: Introduction and the ridge rail
Part II: Framing the roof
Part III: Hanging the shelves
Part IV: Installing the greenhouse film and conclusion
This is a 4 part series on the conversion of a dog kennel into a greenhouse. When the project is finished and all of the articles are written, I'll post links to all of them here. Articles scheduled for this series:
Part I: Introduction and the ridge rail
Part II: Framing the roof
Part III: Hanging the shelves
Part IV: Installing the greenhouse film and conclusion
All content including pictures © Joanne Rigutto unless otherwise noted.
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