Green House Plan

Author: Nancy Maltais
Free to Cheap

Many people have an old shed, chicken coop, pigeon coop, tool shed...you get the idea. Many great greenhouses have been made out of these. Pick up picture windows(because they are big and are usually insulated glass) from your local dump or trash removal(look for houses having replacement windows done). Install some by cutting out some of the roofing or close in the front of an open shed or coop. Voila, it works!!

I just wrote to a young lady in zone 2 who wanted to renovate a pigeon coop into a greenhouse.. She was going to use greenhouse plastic to close in the open sides but was not going to do much to the roof except a couple of skylights. This would not give enough light or enough free heat from sunny days. I suggested she remove the tin roof, and install clear corrugated plastic roofing. If she could not do that, perhaps they could get some steel pipe, bend it into an arch form. Remove the roof, attach the pipe in arched form where the roof was, then use greenhouse plastic to cover the bent pipes just like in a traditional greenhouse.

We then discussed getting some additional heat. One old fashioned way is to use 50 gallon drums, paint them black or cover them with black plastic. Fill the drums with water. The black absorbs the heat into the water during sunny days and radiates the heat back into the greenhouse during the night. These drums also can be used as a base for benches. Some wooden pallets or pieces of wood placed on top is just perfect for your plants. The water is a....[MORE]