Greenhouse dreams

Ever since we bought this house 2 and 1/2 years ago, we have talked of building a greenhouse. The yard has a perfect north/south orientation and the side of the garage faces due south. It would be a perfect spot for a greenhouse. At a Sr's complex here in town they are replacing ALL the windows and my husband managed to get the general contractor to save us some of the windows It is a total crime that most of them were just thrown into a huge bin from the floors above.

So we have TWELVE 2'x7' windows sitting in a storage room waiting for us to bring home. It is going to take us at least four trips, maybe even six, with our little utility trailer to bring them all home.

Question: I am sure some of you have built your own greenhouses and wonder if you have any suggestions for us. Also, these are LOW E glass so we are wondering how that will affect the efficiency of the greenhouse. From what I have read, the Low E glass cuts down on the infra red rays but not the UV rays so it seems to me they should be okay.

I am so excited about the possibility of the greenhouse I can hardly stand it. AND all the beds will be pure MM!!

GK

I have not built my own green house, but I have been keeping some sites listed in my Favorites. here are a few:
http://www.instructables.com/id/GREENHOUSE-FROM-OLD-WINDOWS/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/6Swa3H/doorgarden.com/10/50-dollar-hoop-house-green-house

http://www.howtobuildgreenhouse.com/

hhttp://www.stumbleupon.com/su/6Swa3H/doorgarden.com/10/50-dollar-hoop-house-green-house

http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=greenhouse%20from%20old%20windows&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=677

http://thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=6892.0

DH did some research this morning and found out that Low E glass is actually BETTER to use since it keeps the greenhouse from getting so hot during the day. It is actually recommended for northern climates like mine.

I am thrilled to death. Hopefully next year I will have a greenhouse. I know it won't be ready for spring but perhaps I will have it in time to plant some stuff for fall.

GK

My husband bought me a greenhouse earlier this year. We have it set up but haven't hooked water & power up to it yet. These are a couple of pictures before we set it up. We put a ground cover cloth down first and then topped it w/gravel.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/ske/Spring%202010%20flowers/100_1745.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/ske/Spring%202010%20flowers/100_1746.jpg

Is there a section just for greenhouse gardening here? I looked but didn't see one. I would love to hear from those who do have a greenhouse because I have a lot to learn.

Wow, it's beautiful! I look forward to hearing about your greenhouse exploits

Thanks. It does look nice now that it is set up. We placed it over in the side of the yard directly across from where it was there in the driveway. I have a little bit of a gravel entrance path and we will landscape around it this spring.

ske, how great is that greenhouse! Please keep us updated.

ske, is that a kit from a company, or custom-built?

It was built by a place that manufactures the metal portable buildings. It is the same structure as a metal storage building but w/the clear siding. They delivered it to my home on a trailer and my husband just moved it to where we wanted w/his tractor. I'll post some pics of it in place soon.

I want one of these<~~~ Click the link

My parents owned a geodesic dome house and it was incredibly efficient! If I were in the market for building an efficient house, I would definitely go with a dome, so why not a dome greenhouse? I love the idea!

Alberta Hail-Proof Greenhouse<~~~ Click here

ME LIKEY!!!
recycled window greenhouse

This is the greenhouse purchased by the owners of our mobile home park for our community garden, our Apollo Garden! The greenhouse is from Home Depot and was pretty easy to put together, in spite of all the extra help!!?

Instead of reposting all the pictures, just click on the link and you'll see why we have our greenhouse.
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t2996p105-modesto-central-valley-ca

Great product and when we found a few parts missing and one broken during shipping, a quick phone call to the wonderful customer service guy had the parts in our hands 3 days later!

http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension/publicat/postharv/green/small_greenhouse.pdf

These are the plans that I used to build my greenhouse 2 years ago the biggest expense is the 6mil plastic to cover it 1 100ftx20ft roll will cover it 3 times however if you only put a single cover on expect it to need replacing in about a year. The second time I covered mine I put a double run on don't know yet how long it will last. When it needs replacing again I think I will use a real greenhouse cover. The good thing is with 2 people it can be built in about a day for less than $600.00

3 DIY Green houses for under $300.

Those are all very nice and definitely "doable" by most anyone.
If you like, I can post photos of mine that I built for just about the same cost... just for some more ideas.

If you've not posted them elsewhere on the Forum, YES! Photos please!

We built this primarily out of reclaimed and recycled materials. The only new supplies were the studs and ceiling support beams, the roof material and the hardiboard siding for the "north" wall and part of the northeast wall (that corner has NO sun at any time of the year, so is cooler than the rest... didn't want to lose heat through windows in that area). The bench and raised bed inside were made of reused materials, and pretty much all the hardware was salvaged from other projects. Yes... it's painted black (again, to capture as much heat as possible in our cooler climate)

OOOOOOOOOOOOH! That is lovely! How does it work for you? Thanks so much for sharing it!

it works well, even being unheated. We can't keep tender plants inside during the winter, but we can overwinter some of the half hardy landscape plants and start spring bulbs inside over the winter. It also works well as a cold frame (or if the weather cooperates, a hot frame)
There are windows on the other side (side by side over the potting bench) that match the two tip out windows. The raised bed runs the entire length of the window wall which gets a lot of afternoon sun and quite a bit from about 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. in the summer.
This is a photo of the other side.

Hmm, do you grow tomatoes in there?

Yes indeed. That was the main reason I wanted the greenhouse, since we have such foggy mornings and we were being plagued with blight (usually late season) before planting them under cover. Before this, we had an 8x12' hoop house with raised beds down each side and across the far end that worked well.

Edit to add: There are two photos of tomatoes growing in the greenhouse in the thread PNW tomatoes and your experiences. One taken in June and one in August.

Greenhouse from PVC, wood and polyethylene sheeting.
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-build-diy-hoop-style-greenhouse-from-pvc-wood-and-polyethylene-sheeting-408570/

WHAT a great thread.
I have one of those kit greenhouses with cedar, but if I had my druthers, I would much rather have one made of all those windows.
We had too many time constrains last year and I wanted to get started then.
This shed was free, our neighbour was getting rid of it and dragged it over to our place one day. We used all the leftover materials from our house as siding and then put in some windows that were from the re-use-it centre.



I plan to add a few more windows and use it as a potting shed.