If you don’t want to be limited by the usual growing seasons, it’s about time that you consider building a greenhouse. This way, you’ll manage to provide your family with food throughout the year without breaking the bank. But before you get to this point, you first need to build a greenhouse that can quickly become overwhelming despite it equally being a gratifying and fulfilling experience.
With that in mind, it would be best to learn helpful tips to make this process a lot smoother so that you can start enjoying your harvest. Below are essential tips to consider to ensure you build the best greenhouse to grow plants across the different seasons.
- Buy The Best Greenhouse Kits
“Wooden greenhouse from swgreenhouses.co.uk”
Another thing you need to be mindful of when building a greenhouse is to make sure you have a suitable greenhouse kit during construction. A greenhouse kit is where you get all of the parts included in your purchase, so you can set it up yourself. You can buy a greenhouse kit from swgreenhouses.co.uk, where they offer you the option of a DIY build or assembly by their team. The covering material in the greenhouse kit differs depending on your preference and to know the ideal fit, you need to consider numerous things such as:
- The greenhouse’s lifespan
- The efficacy of your greenhouse in performing its expected functions
- The greenhouse’s sustainability
There are numerous types of materials on the market to pick from, and they have varying efficiency in ensuring optimal growing conditions. The most common options include film, fiberglass, hard polycarbonate, plastic, acrylic, glass, among others. Regardless of the covering material you prefer, it’s best to go with one that’s either thick and opaque or thin and translucent.
When on a tight budget, plastic coverings can be an excellent choice. But if you opt for plastic, it’s best to go for one that’s been reclaimed and not new as this can be recycled when it can no longer be of use. In addition, plastic material breaks easily and can’t be repaired, so you need to be extremely careful when handling it.
- Plan Ahead
Like most construction projects, you shouldn’t start building your greenhouse without determining what plants and vegetables you’re hoping to grow. It’s best to do this because vegetables and plants usually have varying microclimates, that provide an optimal growing environment. For instance, some plants do well during the cold months, while others thrive when temperatures are higher in the summer.
Therefore, you need to know first the plants you’re planning to grow in the greenhouse before you start construction to understand how best to create a conducive microclimate. This typically depends on specific materials such as insulation, lighting, or heating. The things you need to do depending on the type of plant you intend to grow in your greenhouse is as follows:
- Ensure proper heating and lighting when growing warm-season crops such as capsicum, cucumbers, and tomatoes.
- Install uninsulated greenhouses to grow cool month vegetables, including peas, lettuce, broccoli, and carrots.
- Have varying levels of heat, sun, and shade when growing flowering plants as well as ornamental plants, such as ferns.
- Heating during the winter months if you’re growing indoor plants as well as tropical plants, such as orchids and cacti.
With this in mind, always make sure to know what you want to grow in the greenhouse before you even start your construction project.
- Pick A Suitable Location To Build Your Greenhouse
To build yourself the best greenhouse, you need to find the perfect spot on your property to position this structure. It’s recommended that you place your greenhouse somewhere with optimal exposure to natural light as this helps promote plant growth. Besides light, you also need to consider shade and the direction of prevailing winds to know the perfect site position to build your greenhouse.
But before choosing the spot to build your greenhouse, you need to know the plants you’ll be growing, because some plants achieve optimal growth after being exposed to sunlight for a couple of hours. On the other hand, too much sunlight might create an unfavorable condition for the plant’s growth even when using a covering. Because of this, you should strive to recreate this balance in your greenhouse.
You also should consider your local climate to know the best place to position your greenhouse. For example, if you reside in a sunny region, it’s best to build your greenhouse in a shady spot to limit its exposure to direct sunlight. On the contrary, your greenhouse should be positioned in the sunniest spot in your compound if you’re in a cold region.
- Determine The Shape And Size Of your Greenhouse
A greenhouse, regardless of its size, remains to be very useful. But despite this, you must never start building it without first considering whether its size is more than enough space to meet your needs. With that being said, it’s recommended that you build a large enough greenhouse for any possible need for space in the long run. This is especially true when growing plants in your greenhouse during the winter months, and you still want to have varied and more food across the year.
However, you shouldn’t rush to build a huge greenhouse without first understanding the unique challenges that come with it. For instance, despite having more growing space, larger greenhouses are a lot more challenging to control and manage. In contrast, you won’t break a sweat managing a small greenhouse but the only downside is that you don’t have as much space for greater volumes and varieties of plants to grow.
- Use A Strong Greenhouse Frame
The durability and stability of your greenhouse depend on how sturdy the frame was used during its construction. You must choose a strong frame that can comfortably withstand harsh conditions, be it strong winds or terrible weather. There are different kinds of greenhouse frames, each with its strength and weakness. Therefore, you must research all these options to determine which one is the best pick for your greenhouse.
Takeaway
How well you build your greenhouse makes all the difference in whether your efforts to grow plants will bear any fruits. And because building a greenhouse can be a complicated job, it’s best to get help from anywhere you can on how to best go about its construction. If you are confused and overwhelmed in deciding, worry not because this in-depth article has outlined the crucial tips on how to build yourself the best greenhouse.