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Build Your Own Greenhouse

The first step in building your own greenhouse is to decide what size and type of greenhouse is appropriate for you.

This will depend on the space you have available, what you want to do with it, and your zone. Most people don't need a very big greenhouse. Over a hundred plants can be grown successfully in a greenhouse less than a hundred square feet in size. If you just want to start your tomatoes and other cold-sensitive garden crops early, a small greenhouse like that is sufficient.

Another important consideration is where to locate the greenhouse. You want to build it where it can receive maximum sunlight. The ideal location is on the south or southeast side of anything that can give shade, such as a building or trees.

All-day sunlight is best, but morning sunlight (from a southeast facing location) will suffice for plants. Shading the greenhouse from afternoon sun is acceptable, but it should not be shaded from morning sun.
 

Build Your Own Greenhouse: Free Plans

It's easy to find free plans to build your own greenhouse; a web search for "greenhouse plans" will link you to multiple on-line sites.

Some of the common designs are for "attached" greenhouses where one wall of a building becomes a wall of the greenhouse.

A lean-to structure is one attached greenhouse design. There are a number of advantages to building your greenhouse in this way. You will save on building materials, obviously. In addition, the building's heating utilities can be used for the greenhouse without having to add stand-alone heaters. The disadvantage involves both space and shading. A detached, stand-alone greenhouse can be constructed to receive more sunlight than an attached structure, and can also be built larger if more space is required.

Depending on the size of your greenhouse, you may be able to use PVC as the "working" material (the substance that lets in sunlight but blocks it from being radiated back out, thus trapping heat). Large greenhouses are impractical to construct from PVC because of frequent damage and repairs, and should use glass; however, there are cost-reducing ways to do this as well.
 

Build Your Own Greenhouse With PVC

If you are building a fairly small greenhouse (probably no more than 500 square feet in floor space), PVC plastic makes a good material.

The plastic can be purchased from any building-supply or home-remodeling store including Home Depot and similar outlets. It should be 1 inch Schedule 40 PVC cut to panel size appropriate to the greenhouse sections you're building (20 foot lengths should work for most greenhouses).

You will also need framing materials and tools appropriate for the plans or design you are working from, which will likely include treated wood fence posts and 2x4 board lengths, fence staples and a staple gun, bailing wire.

All of this can be purchased quite cheaply and the structure is not difficult to put together.

Build Your Own Greenhouse With Old Windows

Another way to build a greenhouse, using glass as the "working" material, is to use old windows.

Greenhouses have been built from aluminum storm doors bought at auctions, or from various windows salvaged from remodeling projects or demolition of houses. If the windows or glass doors are not identical it can be somewhat like putting a puzzle together to make them come out to four walls and a roof, but it's not impossible, the windows can be acquired quite cheaply, and the framing materials and process are essentially the same as with a PVC greenhouse.