Greenhouse Kits

Interior

One goal for the homestead will be to establish a greenhouse on the property. By establishing a greenhouse, we’ll be able to take advantage of the space we have available and get a head start on gardening each winter. I have tried starting plants from seed inside during the wintertime and have had mixed results. Since we didn’t have a grow light for the plants, they tended to be very ‘leggy’ due to the lack of proper sunlight. Many of the plants did fine once we transplanted them into the garden, but it wasn’t really ideal. Since we intend to have a much larger space available outside for the garden in New Mexico and will need a great many more starts, it makes sense to establish a place to grow them with plenty of light and space.

It is blazing hot in New Mexico in the summertime, so I know we will need to use shade cloth and roll up the sides for ventilation during the hot months to prevent cooking the plants. However, in the southwest, summertime comes so quickly, it will be wonderful to have a sheltered space to start plants before the last frost to help the garden get a headstart during the winter months.

10' x 15' Greenhouse

I found out about a very nice greenhouse kit by seeing a Youtube video made by Jack Spirko about his newly constructed greenhouse and became very intrigued by the kits sold by Steve at Steve’s Greenhouses.

Additionally, since following Steve’s blog over at http://thegreenhouseguy.com , I’ve become inspired to see if it would be worth it to start more plants than we need for trade or sale. I like his commonsense approach to it and the way he shares what has worked well for him. He sells kits for greenhouses at his other site: http://stevesgreenhouses.com/ His kits offer affordability and ease of construction, I think. For about $1000, you can build a 10′ x 20′ greenhouse (using his basic kit costing $685, plus your own materials for the wood end parts, doors, windows and concrete for the support posts). That is a lot of growing space for the price. He offers ideas for heating and ventilation on his blog, too. According to information at his site, the double-layer plastic should last 6-7 years before requiring replacement and seems to be able to withstand snow and wind very well.

I did a bit more looking around online to see what other options are out there. For some other homebuild kits, I found another site — the Greenhouse megastore — that had a fairly good range of sizes and prices. Even the least expensive model was similar in cost at about $945 including free shipping, but offered much less space for growing. It is a very attractive little greenhouse, though and might be a bit more permanent than the design by Steve. This greenhouse would most likely be approved by many strict HOA’s, so would be a good choice for a family living in a neighborhood and without a huge amount of growing space.

For larger and more permanent designs, I found another site — Greenhouses.com — where there were many options including Cedar and Glass designs, etc. Those kits could run into several thousand dollar costs, so are a bit out of the range of our interest. However, there were many very attractive designs, including the Juliana Gardener (36 sq m = 383 sq. ft) for about $8500.

Juliana Gardener 3600

In my internet searching, I even came across a site where the cost per square foot is more than we plan to spend on our home! Check out the fabulous designs at Gothic Arch Greenhouses. While I cannot see one of these designs giving a return on investment anytime soon, they are very impressive. Let’s see… for a 10′ x 20′ greenhouse of this type, we’d be looking at $20,000! But hey… it looks great and would also give a suburban home the possibility of producing food in winter! You could even refer to it as “The Conservatory” and serve afternoon tea amongst the orchids.

Gothic Arch Greenhouses

I also found a great site at Frugal Living Freedom with designs for building your own greenhouse. This is also very intriguing, so we’ll be considering something of this sort as well. I particularly liked the #2 Design that featured using chain-link fencing top rail material for the structure. It is a very attractive design, too.

Greenhouse #2