How To Make Perfect GreenHouse

So today’s blog we’re talking about the right greenhouses or polytunnels for your garden. So hopefully by end of the blog you’ll have a better understanding what’s the greenhouse and polytunnel world. So that you can make the best decision for your garden needs.

Pick your Location

The first step is choose best place to build your greenhouse. The best location for a greenhouse is a southern exposure. The next best location is the southeast or east exposure. Followed by a southwest and west exposure. A north exposure is the least desirable exposure. Greenhouses that are oriented east-west get less light that those oriented north-south. Afternoon shade from deciduous trees can be really desirable. In the summer they can shade the greenhouse over the hottest part of the day and during the winter the leaves will fall and the greenhouse will get extra light it needs during the winter. 

Consider These:

 

-Afternoon shade

-Possibility of Storm Damage

-Good Drainage

-Accessibility

-Water Source

 

Other considerations include providing some afternoon shade the possibility of storm damage, good drainage, accessibility and access to water. You also need to decide whether you’re building a free-standing or a lean-to greenhouse. A free-standing greenhouse gives you more options on placement. An attached greenhouse however can be easier to build it’ll require fewer materials and can be heated by radiant heat from your house. Especially when built on a southern exposure. Now that you’ve picked your location.

Prepare The Frame

Now, you have to build the frame of the greenhouse. 

For a basic greenhouse design, you can make a frame using PVC pipes and join them with elbow joints. For a polytunnel greenhouse, you can place two PVC pipes on either side of the base and bend them from the top to meet in the middle. 

The roof of the greenhouse must be at least 2 meters from the base if you are building a small greenhouse.

It is also a good idea to run a beam or wooden beam across the length of the greenhouse, which will act as the spine of your greenhouse, making it sturdier against rough winds. 

There is no right or wrong way to build the frame. You can build it the way you like it, but it is recommended to use as little PVC or wood as possible to ensure the natural sunlight does not get blocked by the frame.

If you want to add a door to the greenhouse, you can make a door frame on any one side of the greenhouse. Again, use wooden beams or PVC pipes to make the structure of the door.  

Size you want to Build

First decide how wide of a greenhouse to build. You wanna allow nineteen inches for pads if it’s just you walk in the greenhouse. And more like 24 inches if you’ll be bringing in equipment & visitors. Benches should be as wide as you can reach across comfortably if you can access them from one side and they should be twice that width if the benches in the center of the greenhouse. The length of your greenhouse should be based on how many plants you want. You’ll want one square foot of space for every 6inch pot a word of advice make sure that your greenhouse is 25-50% than you think you’ll need. Because if you’re anything like me your plant collection gets bigger not smaller. 

 

 Cost 

If you wondering if one costs more than other, generally greenhouses will cost more based on the materials. So if you looking for more economical option polytunnels are great. Material coast are lower and also the intital setup takes less time, less labor. And also if you inflate those walls, you could be saving a lot of money in the long run in a cooler climate.

 

 

Frame cover

 

Glass is the classic option. It’s the longest lived and it can be a very sustainable option. This greenhouse is built out of upcycled single pane windows. The downside to glass is that t’s heavy it can be expensive if purchased new and it requires the most sturdy framework also can be damaged by storms. 

 

Polycarbonate paneling or fiberglass is the next option. It’s lighter cheaper easier to fabricate and with higher impact resistance then glass. The downside is that has a shorter life span at about 7 to 11 years instead of about 25 years life expectancy for glass. They’ll also eventually yellow and have a high expansion contraction rate/ Polyethylene film is the cheapest option. Easiest to install and is readily available. The downside is that it only has a  4 year service life.

 

Heating and Ventilation

The next concern is heating and ventilation and a lot of that will have to do what kind of plants your growing inside. About 25% percent of the heat is gonna come from the sun. You’ll need about sixty degrees for active growing and about forty degrees for season extension. Typically greenhouses are heated by oil, gas or electricity. This can be forced air, steam are even radiant heat from water. Some alternative heat sources are heat by compost and passive solar Greenhouses. Manual temperature control is really tricky. Automatic vent openers work with a wax cylinder can mean the difference between happy plants and dead ones. If you want to use your greenhouse in the summer a fan will be necessary in the peak heat of the summer your going to need to cycle the air about once per minute.

 

 

Types of Greenhouses

 

Wall pit Greenhouse

These are a pretty neat greenhouse relatively inexpensive to build. However for us it would be fairly expensive to build. Typically you’ll can some of these online, where they’re using sandbags on the wall or cinder blocks or something like that. Because we’re going down on the ground here, we a lot of excavation work has to be done. So first we’re getting through a lot of rock and secondly because technically it’s a foundation you need the building permit you’re now down down underground so it usually is a little bit thicker concrete wall because you’re going to have people inside of that, So it has to be a reinforced concrete wall. 

Traditional Greenhouse

This just a traditional style greenhouse. Most people have seen one of the nice thing about these I they are typically an engineered structure can become quite large. This type of buildings has excellent lighting through the end walls and overhead. They have fairly good snow removal because of the pitch of the roof it just drops off again. This is really an excellent long-term structure. These cover in single layer poly double, rigid plastics such as the polycarbonate, solex and glass. These buildings usually need a foundation. There are very few that I’ve seen that don’t have foundations. Once the foundation kicks in typically the building permits and other taxes start in. this structure is gutter connect greenhouses and if you’re doing really large operation where you just wanna to make one single large building and the end walls are essentially connected the slope of the connects in the center and all the water goes in though there. Then this is very very good for doing large operations.

Passive Solar Greenhouse

These started becoming really popular in 70s. You’ll see a lot of them attached onto houses for the hobby growers. They are extremely energy efficient. These greenhouses van get fairly lighting coming through usually there’re covered at polycarbonate or glass. They have excellent snow removal especially around here because the pith to the south-facing is supposed to be at the winter solstice dangle. Usually they need a building permit because they have to sit on a foundation. They get fairly poor morning and evening light from the east or the west. These have insulated walls on those sides so it takes a few hours for that sun to come around similar to the pit greenhouses. So I have seen a few of these where they do put glass or plastic on the east and west side. One of the biggest problems in this type of structure is trying to make them large enough for a commercial operation. Because of the angle of that south-facing window to make the building wider for more square footage. Your wall height gets really high, so it’s difficult to scale these to fit for a commercial operation.

 

 

You can either do it yourself or you can buy a greenhouse kit like redwood greenhouse kit with polycarbonate sides. Hopefully this blog was helpful to you. So get started with the greenhouse and grow organic for life. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.