Content
- 1 Pros and cons of homemade greenhouses
- 2 What materials can be used to build greenhouses at the dacha?
- 3 The simplest arched tunnel
- 4 Insulated arched greenhouse
- 5 Construction made from plastic bottles
- 6 Greenhouse made from old windows
- 7 A hut-shaped greenhouse for growing cucumbers
- 8 The simplest greenhouse made from vines
Not every owner of a summer cottage can afford to acquire a stationary greenhouse. Despite the simple structure, construction requires large investments and construction skills. Because of this trifle, you shouldn’t give up your desire to grow early vegetables. The solution to the problem will be to install DIY greenhouse from scrap materials on your site.
Pros and cons of homemade greenhouses
A greenhouse shelter is practically the same greenhouse, only reduced several times. Thanks to its modest size, construction material and time for constructing the structure are significantly saved. Homemade greenhouses are rarely made more than 1.5 m high, except perhaps only for cucumbers. Usually the shelter is built no higher than 0.8-1 m.
Among the advantages of a greenhouse design are free heating by sunlight or the heat of rotting organic matter. The vegetable grower does not have to bear the cost of artificially heating the shelter, as is done in a greenhouse. Do-it-yourself greenhouses made from scrap materials are quickly disassembled for storage.Similarly, they can quickly be collected again in the summer if it is necessary to protect plantings from attack by pests or prevent birds from eating berries, for example, ripe strawberries. A homemade shelter has no size restrictions, as is the case in many factory-made analogues. Designs made from scrap materials are given such dimensions that they will fit in the selected area.
The disadvantage of greenhouses made from scrap materials is the same heating. With the onset of frost, it is impossible to grow plants under such shelter. Another disadvantage is the height limitation. Tall crops simply won’t fit in a greenhouse.
What materials can be used to build greenhouses at the dacha?
The greenhouse structure consists of a frame and covering material. To make a frame, plastic or metal pipes, profiles, angles, and rods are suitable. A very simple design can be made from willow twigs or wire inserted into an irrigation hose. A reliable frame will be made from wooden slats, but disassembling it will be more difficult.
The most common covering material is film. It's cheap, but will last 1-2 seasons. The best results are shown by reinforced polyethylene or non-woven canvas. When building a greenhouse from window frames, glass will play the role of covering the frame. Polycarbonate has become a popular cladding material recently. Plexiglas is used less often. Craftsmen have adapted to sheathing the greenhouse frame with fragments of plastic cut from PET bottles.
The simplest arched tunnel
An arched greenhouse is also called a tunnel and arc shelter. This is due to the appearance of the structure, which resembles a long tunnel, where arcs serve as the frame.The simplest greenhouse can be made from ordinary wire bent in a semicircle and stuck into the ground above the garden bed. The film is laid on top of the arcs, and the shelter is ready. For more serious structures, arcs are made from a plastic pipe with a diameter of 20 mm or a steel rod 6–10 mm thick, inserted into an irrigation hose.
Usually, to access the plants, the film is simply lifted from the sides and secured at the top point of the arcs. If you nail long slats at the bottom along the edges of the film, the shelter will become heavier and will not dangle in the wind. To open the sides of the greenhouse, the film is simply rolled onto a rail, and the resulting roll is laid on top of the arcs.
So, having cleared the site for construction, we begin to install the arched shelter:
- For a major arched greenhouse made of boards or timber, you will need to knock down a box. The boards will allow you to set up even a warm bed with compost, plus you can attach arcs to the boards. The bottom of the bed in the box is covered with a metal mesh so that earthen rodents do not spoil the root crops. On the outside of the side, pipe sections are secured with clamps into which arcs made of a metal rod will be inserted.
- If it is decided to make the arches from plastic pipes, then there is no need to attach pieces of pipes to the side. The holders of the arcs will be pieces of reinforcement 0.7 m long, driven into both long sides of the box in increments of 0.6-0.7 m. The plastic pipe is cut into pieces, bent in a semicircle and simply put on the pins, as shown in the photo.
- If the height of the arches exceeds 1 m, it is advisable to strengthen them with a jumper from the same pipe. The finished skeleton is covered with polyethylene or non-woven fabric.The covering material is pressed to the ground with any weight or slats are nailed along the edges for weighting.
The arched greenhouse is ready, all that remains is to prepare the soil and create a bed.
Insulated arched greenhouse
The disadvantage of greenhouses is that they cool quickly at night. The accumulated heat is not enough until the morning, and heat-loving plants begin to experience discomfort. You can make a real heated greenhouse from scrap materials from plastic bottles. They will play the role of an energy accumulator. The principle of constructing such a shelter from scrap material can be seen in the photo.
To work, you will need two-liter beer containers of green or brown color. The bottles are filled with water and tightly sealed with stoppers. The dark color of the walls of the containers will help the water quickly warm up in the sun, and at night the accumulated heat will warm the soil of the bed.
The further process of making a greenhouse involves the installation of arcs. Arches made of plastic pipes are strung on metal pins driven into the ground. If the arches are made of rod, they are simply stuck into the ground. Next, the sides of the box are built from PET bottles filled with water along the perimeter of the bed. To prevent the containers from falling, they are dug in a little, and then the entire perimeter of the board is covered with twine.
The bottom of the future bed is covered with black polyethylene. He will protect the plants from weed and cold soil below. Now all that remains is to fill the box with fertile soil, plant the seedlings and lay covering material on the arches.
Construction made from plastic bottles
Plastic bottles are a handy material for many designs, and a greenhouse is no exception. For such a shelter, you will need to knock down a frame from wooden slats. It is better to make the roof of the greenhouse gable. It will not be possible to bend arches from a tree, and a single slope plane with a weak slope will accumulate rainwater and may fail.
To cover the frame you will need at least 400 two-liter bottles. It is advisable to choose them in different colors. Diffused light will have a beneficial effect on the development of plants, but it is better to give preference to transparent containers. The bottom and neck of each bottle are cut off with scissors. The resulting barrel is cut lengthwise and straightened to form a rectangular piece of plastic. Next, the labor-intensive work of sewing all the rectangles together with wire will be necessary to obtain fragments of the required size. The plastic is attached to the greenhouse frame with the staples of a construction stapler.
Such a greenhouse cannot be called collapsible, but it is made 100% from scrap materials.
Greenhouse made from old windows
Used window frames are the best available material for making a greenhouse. If there are enough of them, you can make a completely transparent box with an opening top. A shelter made from window frames is sometimes attached to the house, then the fourth wall of the box is not made. The main condition for the manufacture of the structure is to maintain the slope of the top lid of the box to prevent the accumulation of rainwater on the glass.
So, after preparing the installation site for the greenhouse, the box is assembled from boards or window frames. It is advisable to treat the wood with an anti-rotting impregnation and paint it. The back wall of the finished box should be higher than the front so that a slope of at least 30 is formed.O. The window frame is attached to the high wall with hinges. On a long box, the roof is made of several frames, then you will have to make jumpers between the back and front walls. They will serve as a support for closed frames. Handles are attached to the front of the frames to make it convenient to open the roof. Now the made box, or rather the frame, remains to be glazed and the greenhouse from scrap materials is ready.
A hut-shaped greenhouse for growing cucumbers
To build a greenhouse for cucumbers with your own hands, you will have to show a little imagination. For these climbing vegetables, you will need to build a shelter at least 1.5 m high. It is not advisable to use arcs for such a greenhouse. The structure will be shaky. Arches can be welded from metal pipes, but such a greenhouse will be expensive and heavy.
Returning to the materials at hand, it is time to remember the designs of huts, often built in childhood. The principle of such a structure will serve as the basis for a greenhouse for cucumbers. So, according to the size of the bed, a box is made from boards or timber. A beam 1.7 m long and with a cross-section of 50x50 mm is attached at one end to the box using the same method as was done with the arches. In this case, it is important to ensure that each timber stand is fixed at a slope towards the center of the bed. When the two ends of the opposite supports close into an acute angle from above, you get a hut.
The installed supports of the hut are fastened together with crossbars made of boards.The film will be attached to them. At the top, where there is an acute angle, the edges of the hut are fastened with a solid board along the entire length of the greenhouse. The finished frame is covered with film on top. To prevent the covering material from being torn by the wind, it is nailed with thin strips to the transverse boards. A garden net is stretched inside the hut. Cucumbers will trail along it.
The simplest greenhouse made from vines
Having an old irrigation hose on the farm, you can make excellent arcs for greenhouse. However, first you will have to go to a pond and cut rods from the vine about 10 mm thick. For a greenhouse with a covering material width of 3 m, you will need rods 1.5 m long. The vine is cleaned of bark and knots. Next, cut the hose into pieces of 20 cm, and insert rods on each side. The vine should fit very tightly. As a result, from two half-arcs connected by a hose, one full-fledged arch for a greenhouse was obtained.
When the required number of arches is ready, a frame is made from them according to the principle of an arched greenhouse and covering material is stretched.
The video shows a greenhouse made from scrap materials:
Using several examples, we looked at how to make a greenhouse with your own hands from scrap materials available in the household. As you can see, everything is quite simple and if you have imagination, you can come up with your own shelter options for plantings.
