Last year we attempted to start some of our vegetable plants from seed in the house. It ended up being a total disaster. The plants could not get enough sun, they took space on the kitchen counter and table, and the planters became a hang out for fruit flies. Ultimately we ended up loosing all of the seedlings before they ever made it into the ground.


To fix the issue this year I decided to build a small greenhouse. I looked at several commercial options and many free, do-it-yourself plans on the Internet. Most of the commercial options were too big and expensive. The plans on the Internet were fine, but many were way more elaborate that what I needed; they did however give me an idea. Using some of the materials that I had from other projects I could build a small green house for just a few dollars.

I am not using my garden boxes from last year so I stacked them on top of each other and added some dirt to make a base. Then my wonderful wife took some PVC pipe we had from another project and made some ribs for the structure. She did this by drilling a hole half way through each of the supports. Then drilling a hole every two feet, starting from the end, on one pipe to make a roof truss. After the holes were drilled she used some bolts and nuts to secure the supports to the truss. With the ribs complete we jammed the supports into the sides of the base. The pressure from the arc on the PVC holds the supports in place. I have plans to secure them with strapping if they ever start to slip. I left the exposed structure open for a few weeks to see how it would do. Thankfully nothing budged.


With the frame in place it was time to turn my attention to covering the house. For that I used some thick polyethylene we had from covering a sidewalk while it cured a few years ago. We started by measuring and cutting squares large enough to cover the ends. Then we attached the corners and bottom of the plastic to the base using heavy duty staples. Slowly we wrapped the plastic around the end arcs one at a time using duct tape to hold it together. When we finished securing the ends we used some more plastic to make the roof. When we started securing the roof we discovered that clear packing tape sticks really well to plastic, and being clear it lets light in. The roof was secured one end at a time using packing tape and staples.

At this point I went around the entire structure and used packing tape to reinforce all of the corners. I also put tape over the roof bolts and staples to hopefully prevent the plastic from tearing. When everything was finally sealed the plastic immediately started fogging from the inside — which is a good sign that it is working.

The final task was to create some sort of access so I could get into the greenhouse. To do that I cut a large hole in the side of the roof between two of the supports on the back side. Then I cut a new piece of plastic large enough to overlap the hole I just made. Using some more packing tape I attached the new piece of plastic over the hole to form somewhat of a hinge. To make sure the door stayed shut I ran a strip of velcro down each side of the hatch and along the bottom. At first the adhesive on the back of the velcro did not want to stick to the plastic, but I found out by accident that it really likes to stick to packing tape. So I ran a strip of packing tape on the inside of the hatch door and the roof, and reattached the velcro to the packing tape. I also stapled the velcro to the base of the house where I could. The hatch is not very big, and it will require me to get dirty to get inside but that is no big deal to me.

Now that it is all said and done I need to put something in there to see how well it really works. I am also trying to find a small weather unit that I can put in the greenhouse and monitor from the outside.