The Greenhouse Is Finished

by FrugalBabe on September 22, 2008

My husband finished our greenhouse yesterday.  I thought I’d post a picture so that my description would make more sense.  The whole project cost about $160.  The bulk of that was four double-paned glass doors that he found at the Habitat for Humanity thrift store.  Other than the doors, he used scrap wood that he found in the cull bin at Home Depot, screws that we had left over from another project, primer and paint left over from the last time we painted our old fence, insulation, caulk, and metal angle brackets.  I’m really proud of him – I think he did a fantastic job, and the greenhouse will allow us to extend our growing season considerably.  The doors that you can see in the picture are fixed at the bottom and swing open to allow access to the plants inside.  (There are two more matching doors on the other side, facing the fence)  There are stepping stones inside and we can just walk right in to harvest our crops. 

The greenhouse is on the south side of our house, and although it gets very cold here, we get a lot of sun all year round.  We’ve planted some cold-hardy greens, and we’re letting our existing swiss chard keep growing in the greenhouse – we’ll see how long it goes.  We’re excited for our winter gardening.  Between our hydroponic garden and the outdoor greenhouse we should have a pretty good amount of homegrown produce.

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  • http://liberta.co.za Francois Viljoen

    Very cool Frugal Babe!!

    It looks good too. :)

  • http://www.bartonfamilyvalues.com Michelle

    Wow. Looks awesome :)

  • http://thereductionistspeaks.blogspot.com/ neimanmarxist

    very impressive! re. the guns n roses entry – yeah, I had a really interesting interpretation of “under the bridge” by the Red hot chili peppers. I got caught out on it when I Was around 12 and I think it took me years to live it down. ah, a childhood of dorkiness. character-building in the end! “)

  • http://www.remodelingthislife.com Emily

    That is awesome! WTG hubby!

  • http://www.frugalchick.net Frugalchick

    Yeah, the picture helps the description makes more sense. It looks pretty and functional. May I ask what do you use/do for ventilation?

  • http://naturaltwenties.blogspot.com/ Natural & Frugal

    That looks great, I would love to have a greenhouse like that one day – and so cheap too!!

  • http://www.miss-thrifty.co.uk Miss Thrifty

    Your husband’s so clever! Do you think he’d make one for me and post it over to England?

  • http://frugalbabe.com Frugal Babe

    Frugal Chick – There are ventilation gaps about an inch wide at the end of each door. He’s making strips of wood with rubber seals that can be moved in and out of the gaps depending on the weather. If we need a lot of ventilation, we can open one of the doors. We put a thermometer inside the greenhouse so that we can tell if it’s getting too hot in there. The whole thing is a work in progress, but we think it will work.

  • http://www.grovesfamilyhappenings.blogspot.com/ Kelly

    Very nice. I would love to have a green house. Unfortunately my garden did pretty miserably this year. I guess with a baby I wasn’t able to devote as much time to it. But I love the idea of growing as much food as possible. I guess I will just have to work harder next year!

  • http://www.KristensRaw.blogspot.com Kristen’s Raw

    WOW! That is so very cool! I can’t wait to learn more as the year progresses.

    Cheers,
    Kristen

  • Charles

    very nice, after reading your first hydroponic entries, I was going to suggest the Four Season Gardener. Your husband seems very industrious. But, he beat me to it. Solar Gardening is very much a companion to my suggestion. I’m still waiting on your husband to develop the home made hydroponic solution enhancer. The blackstrap molasses option was great. Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

  • jo

    how big is your greenhouse? it doesn’t look big enough to really grow anything worthwile.

  • http://frugalbabe.com Frugal Babe

    @Jo – It’s 14 feet long, 4 feet wide, and about 3 feet tall in the middle. Our primary outdoor crops are greens (swiss chard, kale, lettuce, spinach), which grow in all parts of the greenhouse. We have two tomato plants out there, growing right in the middle of the greenhouse, where it’s tallest. We hung trellis netting from the top of the structure, and the tomato plants are well-supported on that. Since our primary crops are greens (which only get to be about a foot tall, and can grow very close together), we don’t need a big greenhouse. And given the size of our yard, we have to have a small garden. We eat a lot of greens every day, and last winter we kept track of what we were spending on them – it was about $3/day. So we decided that growing them ourselves year round (with the hydroponics and with the greenhouse) would be a better solution. So far it’s working great. The greens in the greenhouse are alreay growing a lot better than they were before we put in the greenhouse, since it keeps everything so much more humid. We’re excited to see how much we can stretch our growing season with the greenhouse.

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