A Greenhouse Would be Nice
By: B. L. Holland, Master Gardener

Having your own greenhouse this time of year is the ultimate gardening luxury. Houseplants thrive all winter in the humidity and extra sunshine.  Garden plants can be propagated in winter to set out in spring. In only a few months, seeds can be started for spring gardens. What a great idea! How wonderful to be able to garden around the weather. For gardeners who love to grow their own there really is no other "dream-house." 

Before you buy or build your own greenhouse there are a few things you should probably consider. Growing healthy plants, as you well know, takes time and attention. A greenhouse operates in all seasons requiring year-round maintenance. Like having pets, someone must "sit" for your plants when you leave home for more than a few days. But unlike pets, you can't take all your plants with you.

When the sun is beaming in even on winter days, the plants and the greenhouse dry out quickly. But over-watering greenhouse plants in winter can lead to disease. Pests and diseases spread easily through the greenhouse and need to be nipped early and often. Especially if you're growing "babies" they need attention every day. The temperature and humidity need to be monitored on a daily/nightly basis.

A greenhouse must be heated in winter and cooled in summer--small greenhouses in our area don't get enough sun warmth during the day to last through the minus-digit nights we see in winter. Heat pours out through the roof on cold winter nights and can leave plants shivering without extra heat. Gas heat is more efficient and less costly than electricity and is probably a little safer with water all around. Gas heaters which give off plant-toxic fumes should be vented to the outside. Heaters made especially for greenhouses are the best way to go. 

Home greenhouses are more efficient if attached to your house as a lean-to enclosure. This makes them handy to use from the house, close to water and electricity, and insulates them at least on the side next to the house. 

Greenhouses don't have to be expensive to buy. Savings are huge if you can build it yourself or even if you use a kit. Kits are limited though in size and attachability to your particular house. Greenhouses should be located on the east and/or south side of a house to provide early-morning warmup and the most sunshine in winter. 

The larger your home greenhouse the more efficient it can be. Larger structures are slower to cool down and warm up so require less constant monitoring. Air circulation is better in a larger structure. Build or buy the largest greenhouse you can afford or can maintain, because they seem to shrink once all the plants are inside and you're trying to move around amongst them. 

Sunroom additions are beautiful room additions to your home, but I personally am too messy to have such a nice floor. I like to be free to spill and spatter and not worry too much about knocking plants over with a hose, etc.

And think of the extra windows to clean! 

. . . . . Like me, you may have decided you just cannot live another day without your own place to grow plants. A place to pot, plant and propagate with pleasure -- a place to have it all. Now let's talk about building it yourself. The following is my own my personal experience. 

For years, I struggled with my hobby. Determined to grow my own plants I set up a "light garden" in my garage. It worked fairly well-- it was certainly well-ventilated--especially with the garage door open five or six times a day in March! But the lights were still not the sun and my seedlings were still weak and spindly when April came. My spouse, seeing my pain each spring, bought me a greenhouse book and encouraged me to go ahead; but I was hesitant to indulge myself.

Meeting other garden enthusiasts through the Master Gardener Program, my hobby began to seriously blossom. It was like group support-- there were others out there, just like me-- others who wished and dreamed and planned through the winter only to finally became whole again in spring. Wouldn't it be great to skip winter and have spring all year long? So the decision to build a greenhouse was made.

First I bought and borrowed books, sent for plans and greenhouse kit information, talked with building contractors, handymen, got some estimates, and... reached an impasse. Having someone build this thing the way I wanted would cost a little too much for my "hobby," not to mention my supportive "hubby."

In talking with contractors, I had drawn up a sketch of my own to show them.  Then one morning just as I was prepared to sign a contract, it dawned on me that this contract was not quite what I wanted after all. This was a compromise with the builder, a little too much structure, and much too much of a room addition to our house. Maybe I can do it my own way myself ...maybe ...maybe. I'm not a carpenter, and my background in woodworking is limited to a few crude bookcase-like structures and a thoroughly indestructible dog house where Dorothy would have felt safe in Kansas. 

That day I visited the lumber yard and bought my first 2x4s of rough-sawn cedar, just enough to build one frame wall that would fit underneath our house's back patio roof. It cost about $20-30-- an investment in experimental "do-it-myselfing." The cedar was lightweight and easy to saw. I built the frame of the first wall, and voile,' it fit!  

By that evening I was on my way to countless sleepless nights planning my next day's building-- my new hobby. I ordered polycarbonate for the walls and while it was being shipped, the sawing and drilling and hammering and sweating continued. The other wall framing took much more planning, time and lumber.  I made some mistakes, but they later became benches for the plants. My spouse helped power saw the lumber for the roof after work and on weekends and gave me many practical construction ideas (he took shop in high school). But this was my project, my greenhouse, my thing and I owned it completely. This was really fun! 

Then the polycarbonate came. It came in sheets like plywood. It was a little hard to handle but it really made the greenhouse a greenhouse. Now all I had left was the door and the wall vents, these took almost a month!  Finishing tasks take forever. Meanwhile, I started my first cool-loving seeds. These were plants I could never grow before because it gets too hot here in summer and they are not "houseplants." And my greenhouse would be cool in winter because I did not want to grow orchids or tomatoes anyway.

By December my house was blooming. The houseplants loved the extra light and humidity, the seedlings grew and bloomed, it was everything I had dreamed it would be. And when February/March came I was ready for seed starting for outdoor plants, no more weak and spindly, barely alive bedding plants in my yard! It was well worth all the time and sweat of last summer--it was wonderful.

Honestly, I missed working with the structure itself. If I were a carpenter and not a lady, I'm sure I would see mistakes. But it stands and stands well.  It works and works well. Most of all, it is mine.