- Determine placement and orientation.
- Choose a hard, even surface. Concrete, a wooden porch, or a cleared out, level patch of land.
- Choose a sunny place – but preferably not one that will get blasted in the hot, afternoon suns.
- Don’t be overly worried if part of your greenhouse will be in some shade. Microclimates are your friends! There are plenty plants that will appreciate the cooler areas.
- If your chosen place is exposed to a lot of wind, make sure there is a way to secure the greenhouse to something sturdy.
- This design has a slanted roof that will allow water to fall off of the structure and onto the adjacent ground. Without this, rainwater will pool onto the plastic roof of the greenhouse and cause the plastic to sag. Orient the greenhouse so the runoff from the roof into a garden bed or rainwater collection system.
- Determine the dimensions you want.
- Make the total height of the greenhouse comfortable enough for the tallest person in your household to stand up straight in.
- Due to the nature of the PVC joints, we had to make the roof a separate structure unto itself. The final height of the roof is going to be about 1 foot higher at the the front. Make sure that the highest point of the roof fits where you need it.
- Determine amount of PVC pipes you’ll need
- Determine width of PVC pipe
- Determine total square footage of sheet needing.
- Gather supplies!
- 8 pieces PVC Tee Joints
- 14 pieces PVC 3-way elbow joints
- 4 pieces PVC 45 degree joints
- 12 pieces coupling connections
- Enough plastic sheeting to cover the square feet you determined
- 17 – .5 inch PVC poles – 10 feet a piece @ 1.91 (discounted 10% for buying 10 – so 1.72 a piece) totalling 32.47 / 29.24
- 8 – .5 inch PVC Tee joints @ .51 totalling 4.08
- 14 – .5 inch 3-way elbow joints @ .98 totalling 13.72
- 4 – .5 inch 45 degree joint @ .66 totalling 2.64
- 2 – .5 inch connection coupling @ .42 totalling 84
- 10 – .5 inch connection coupling (in a pack!) @ 2.78
- 10′ x 25′ clear 3.5 mil plastic sheeting @ 11.48
- Total
- 74.02 / 70.79