New Greenhouse

This is the year we've finally added a 'real' greenhouse to supplement our tried and true, 15 year old hoophouse. It's still a work in progress, we are adding a propane heater, misting system, and some overhead support for hanging baskets. Also more potting benches, running water and a sink, and a few other doo-dads.

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Nice greenhouse. How big is it? How are you going to do your misting system? I have misters in my hoop house if you need any tips. Can you post pictures of your hoop house?

pacamom, the greenhouse is 10' x 12'. The misters are "hard plumbed" PVC piping. If you look at the second photo you can see it running around the tops of the side walls, although it wasn't fully attached when we took these photos. We are drilling holes at about 2 foot intervals and will be be gluing in misting heads. The piping is attached to a timer we recycled from an old lawn sprinkling system someone gave us.

The hoop house right now is non-operational. We tore the old cover off and all that is there at the moment are the hoops and the foundation. We didn't grow anything in it this year as we've been putting our efforts to getting the new greenhouse up. We will be rehabbing it this autumn to have it ready for next year. We recycled potting benches used in the old hoop house and I plan on building raised beds on the floor of the hoophouse to grow crops in the ground.

I can't find even an old picture of the hoophouse in operation, but here is a picture of the kit we built it from, from Gardener's Supply, fourteen or fifteen years ago. It looks much the same as the picture only it's the bigger one, 12' x 16' and it is on a full concrete block foundation which raises the height a foot or so.

very impressive

Science Chic wrote: Wowsuh! You're going all out AV! Looks cool - what will you be growing? Any advice for those who would like to put their own in?

Thanks for the pics - we love those!

Thanks, SC.

As for advice, after 14 seasons of greenhouse growing up here...

1. Bigger is better. The bigger the greenhouse, the less the temperature swings and extremes. Also whatever size you think you would be right will be too small!

2. If you use a kit (my new one is a Harbor Freight) realize you are going to have to re-engineer it to withstand our winds and snow loads. There are a lot of resources on line showing you how. But I guarantee a kit like mine would have blown down in the first real "mountain breeze" unless we'd added a substantial foundation, lots of reinforcement, extra glazing clips, and screwed in the panels.

3. The greenhouse kit or structure is only about 1/3 of the cost of your investment. You will need a decent foundation, as well as the above-mentioned reinforcements. I opted for a hard-surface floor, which added a couple hundred dollars. But the most important additions are the "systems", heater, , ventilation, solar roof vents, misting, safe electrical and plumbing, shadecloth, winter insulation and or "bubble insulation". And potting benches. We built our own from a plan we found online (actually the one you see in the photo is a recycled bench from our old hoophouse that we repaired a little and painted).

4. Don't count on growing tomatoes all winter. It can be very pricey to keep a greenhouse warm enough to grow tender crops all year. And even if you can afford the heating costs, the low light conditions of winter means disappointing growth. But we have wintered hardy greens and some root crops in the hoophouse even without heating.

5. Expect a fairly long learning curve. It took us about three seasons to really get the "hang" of what would and would not do well in our hoophouse and to understand the different greenhouse seasons.

6. Learn succesion planting. You can get two or even three crops of some vegetables in an unheated hoophouse, even in our short growing season, if you learn this art.

7. It will get much, much hotter than you think in your greenhouse! Plan for shadecloth, good ventilation and fans, and a misting system right from the beginning. Few plants thrive in the desert-like conditon of a greenhouse without these systems.

8. Expect that it is going to take much longer than you think to build and equip your greenhouse! If you want to use your greenhouse next spring, now is the time to get it built. Don't try to throw one up in March!

BEAUTIFUL,L JUST BEAUTIFUL!!! Good luck and HAPPY PLANTING/GROWING.... :thumbsup:

can someone tell if they have had any mold issues in their greenhouse and if so how to remedy that?? thanks

MamaRama wrote: can someone tell if they have had any mold issues in their greenhouse and if so how to remedy that?? thanks

I had some mold the first year I ran the hoophouse. Increased ventilation took care of it.

I like it. Have you considered putting in a water trough under one of the potting benches? Something in the neighborhood of 150 gallons along the north wall (if possible) will greatly stabilize the greenhouse temperature.