relatively inexpensive greenhouse
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2016 2:34 pm
Both windows in the place where I live face SE ... the windows get 4 to 6 hours (depending on the season) of direct sunlight per day. And I placed a half dozen 40W CFL lights (4500 degree color) close to the succulents I had in these windows (about a foot away). But despite it all, I had a couple of cacti suffer from etiolation (sp?).
So this year I decided to put up a small greenhouse.
What I had in mind (simple, simple, simple) required the following:
[list]* Enough 4x4's to create a base 4' x 8',
* 2 pieces of what looks like heavy duty hardware cloth (although I THINK they call it cattle fencing) 4'x16'
* A couple of pieces of 1"x4" to act as crossbraces ... just enough to supply SOME rigidity in the wind ...
* 2 pounds or so of those "U" shaped nails ... I don't know WHAT you call them ... used to attach the cattle fencing to the 4x4's
* A couple of brackets that I used to attach the 4x4's into a rectangle
* And a sheet of 10'x55' (almost twice what I needed) of 4 year 6 mil greenhouse plastic sheeting.
* Two rolls of plastic repair tape that is supposed to "permanently repair plastic sheeting". I got these from the Internet and can let you know where they came from IF you are interested.
* Four 1/2"x1/2" neodymium magnets[/list]
The wood, various hardware and cattle fencing was somewhere in the vicinity of $100 to $125, and the greenhouse plastic with the tape was also about $100.
The growth that some of my cacti experienced this summer was just beyond belief ... I have a couple of Myrtillocactus geometrizans that put on about 6" of growth THIS summer ... they went from 12" to 18" and are nearly twice as big at the top as they are at the bottom. I've got six ... count them ... SIX different succulents in flower ... all at once!
I've included a couple of pictures below to illustrate how easy it is to build a primitive ... and I DO MEAN PRIMITIVE greenhouse ... you should be able to see that i've got about 50-55 plants in there. Cacti, caudiciforms, euphorbias, echeverias, and haworthias (which are the ONLY succulents that did not do well outside ... they got sunburnt and had to come back inside to my windows where they are recovering nicely). The plastic is rather rather permanently attached on three sides (I put a strip of duct tape along the length of the plastic, right at the bottom, to reinforce the plastic and then used an electric stapler to staple the duct-tape-reinforced-plastic to the 4 x 4's at the bottom), and I left one side and the bottom free on one end to use as a door. I use 4 half inch by half inch neodymium magnets taped to the edge of the plastic "door" to hold it shut. The original picture dimensions were 4288x2416 (4 to 6MB apiece) so I resized them to 1024x768 to keep their size down to 400 to 500KB.
Please feel free to ask questions if this interests you at all, and i'll do my best to answer them as and if they come.
This system says the following attachments are no longer available, but you can see for yourself that the images are THERE!
[attachment=5]DSCF6973.JPG[/attachment]
The small pieces of white tape on the sides serve the following function. Additional support ... so the wind wouldn't "inflate" the place, putting strain on the plastic, when the "door" is open. I put a piece of tape on the plastic at junctions of the horizontal/vertical wire of the cattle fencing... Poked two holes in the tape and tied the plastic to the cattle fencing with para-cord ... and then put another piece of tape over the top of the para-cord so it wouldn't come untied.
[attachment=4]DSCF6974.JPG[/attachment]
[attachment=3]DSCF6975.JPG[/attachment]
So this year I decided to put up a small greenhouse.
What I had in mind (simple, simple, simple) required the following:
[list]* Enough 4x4's to create a base 4' x 8',
* 2 pieces of what looks like heavy duty hardware cloth (although I THINK they call it cattle fencing) 4'x16'
* A couple of pieces of 1"x4" to act as crossbraces ... just enough to supply SOME rigidity in the wind ...
* 2 pounds or so of those "U" shaped nails ... I don't know WHAT you call them ... used to attach the cattle fencing to the 4x4's
* A couple of brackets that I used to attach the 4x4's into a rectangle
* And a sheet of 10'x55' (almost twice what I needed) of 4 year 6 mil greenhouse plastic sheeting.
* Two rolls of plastic repair tape that is supposed to "permanently repair plastic sheeting". I got these from the Internet and can let you know where they came from IF you are interested.
* Four 1/2"x1/2" neodymium magnets[/list]
The wood, various hardware and cattle fencing was somewhere in the vicinity of $100 to $125, and the greenhouse plastic with the tape was also about $100.
The growth that some of my cacti experienced this summer was just beyond belief ... I have a couple of Myrtillocactus geometrizans that put on about 6" of growth THIS summer ... they went from 12" to 18" and are nearly twice as big at the top as they are at the bottom. I've got six ... count them ... SIX different succulents in flower ... all at once!
I've included a couple of pictures below to illustrate how easy it is to build a primitive ... and I DO MEAN PRIMITIVE greenhouse ... you should be able to see that i've got about 50-55 plants in there. Cacti, caudiciforms, euphorbias, echeverias, and haworthias (which are the ONLY succulents that did not do well outside ... they got sunburnt and had to come back inside to my windows where they are recovering nicely). The plastic is rather rather permanently attached on three sides (I put a strip of duct tape along the length of the plastic, right at the bottom, to reinforce the plastic and then used an electric stapler to staple the duct-tape-reinforced-plastic to the 4 x 4's at the bottom), and I left one side and the bottom free on one end to use as a door. I use 4 half inch by half inch neodymium magnets taped to the edge of the plastic "door" to hold it shut. The original picture dimensions were 4288x2416 (4 to 6MB apiece) so I resized them to 1024x768 to keep their size down to 400 to 500KB.
Please feel free to ask questions if this interests you at all, and i'll do my best to answer them as and if they come.
This system says the following attachments are no longer available, but you can see for yourself that the images are THERE!
[attachment=5]DSCF6973.JPG[/attachment]
The small pieces of white tape on the sides serve the following function. Additional support ... so the wind wouldn't "inflate" the place, putting strain on the plastic, when the "door" is open. I put a piece of tape on the plastic at junctions of the horizontal/vertical wire of the cattle fencing... Poked two holes in the tape and tied the plastic to the cattle fencing with para-cord ... and then put another piece of tape over the top of the para-cord so it wouldn't come untied.
[attachment=4]DSCF6974.JPG[/attachment]
[attachment=3]DSCF6975.JPG[/attachment]