Making a Mini Greenhouse

Happy weekend, everyone! Over the past couple of weekends, my husband, aka Mr. Ethereal, has been noodling how to make a mini greenhouse for me to protect our summer and winter veggies growing out in the south garden. Winter is coming soon and I hope to grow some vegetables into the wintertime…

This year I have finally had a bumper crop of tomatoes! The roses grew well as did these guys with the super high temps, so I with the milder fall weather, I am hoping to get these little cherry and Big Boy tomatoes to ripen before winter really sets in around North Texas.

***On a side note, sorry about no SYS this week! I had a dentist appointment on Wednesday afternoon late after work, and by the time I was done, I was beat. I’m back painting in the early mornings before school, getting the powder room done while Hubby is gone on a business trip.

How to make your own mini greenhouse

• Mr. Ethereal started with putting four rebar rods into the four corners surrounding an area about 8′ square near our little shed which houses the lawn mower and all of the “stinky” equipment. 🙂

• Next, he picked up four 10′, 1/2″ PVC plastic pipes from the big box store. He had to figure out long the curves needed to be. He cut each pipe down to 8′, I believe, and used a 1/2″ connector in the middle of each arch to connect each section. He plans on getting two more pipes to add a third arch in the middle soon.

• From there, Mr. E draped heavy plastic over the top weighted down with 4’x4′ posts holding down the extra plastic.

• Lastly, we gathered the Harbor Freight clips, used with netting over the citrus trees this spring (2/$1.00 on sale), to secure the plastic to the bent pole arches.

• He plans of adding more plastic at the back and a slip overlapped piece for the front for a “door.”

I totally love this improvised mini greenhouse!!! Right now, there is room to house the garden cart, which is awesome. 🙂

The southern fence here helps protect all the plantings set there. I hope to create a microclimate underneath this little greenhouse where we can grow more plants to sustain us throughout the year. Kale grows well in winter as does broccoli and cauliflower. Carrots and potatoes can be planted in late winter, and garlic needs to sit throughout the cold winter months to help them set. That’s something I need to still get from the local hardware/farm store!

Peppers and tomatoes do well in the spring, summer and here into the fall. I have baby asparagus growing, too! Asparagus takes three years to mature, so its a long haul with them. 🙂 The asparagus growing in the back planter here above was older to begin with.

The other asparagus I have in another round planter will be three years old next year. I need to pick up one more oval planter and

Planters instead of inground

I love in-ground planters and had two at our last home in California. Here, though, we have nasty fire ants! Those mean little buggers bite me all of the time so to help prevent getting bit and then having to eradicate them while growing veg (possibly making ourselves sick), I thought raised beds would help. So far, so good! They have stayed out of the planters.

Each planter is raised on bricks and I drilled holes in the bottoms of each planter for drainage. I didn’t do that the first year but fixed that last year which has made a big difference in the health of all of the plants growing in each metal planter. 🙂

And that’s our little greenhouse! Mr. Ethereal is thinking of making a little two shelf bench for me to keep terra cotta pots on here to the left built out of scrap lumber. But that’s another project… 😉

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Happy fall gardening, friends!