Area51- Greenhouse Build Spring/Summer 2025:

May 2nd: With the Vegetable Garden all staked out it was on to laying out the Greenhouse. I decided to keep it six feet off the property line and not poke it too far back in the corner to ease in lawncare etc.

My plan is to make the Greenhouse ten feet long and nine feet wide, which is an odd number for construction but will provide the optimum multipurpose interior layout I have in mind. We picked a location and got to work grubbing off the grass, unsurprisingly finding very little topsoil under the sods.

Drainage in this area has always been great having experienced no standing water in this area since we moved here in 2014.

The basic layout will have two full length planters 24" wide on each side leaving a little over 50" in the centre. This will be a multipurpose space to have moveable pots and planters and/or a moveable work station. This will leave enough room to walk down each side of the center flexible work area to tend to the fixed planters. Right now I'm just waiting on a permit from the town before we begin construction!

June 7th: With permit finally in hand work continues on the Greenhouse build! We needed to level the ground and I wanted something dry onto which to build. I chose to use stone as it will keep the bottom of the framework off the soil which will hopefully slow down the frame from rotting out.

We shoveled the stone around the perimeter and piled up the remainder in the centre for now.

June 22nd: After a couple week delay work finally continues today in leveling the stone to start construction.

Just by chance we had exactly enough stone to level the area (which was off about 4" Front to Back) having enough left to perfectly fill in the centre area creating a perfectly flat pad.

With the pad complete it was off to the lumberyard to pickup the first of a couple loads of lumber to begin framing.

The 2x4x10's were select grade lumber but I did save quite a few dollars by picking up economy grade 2x4x8's which will form the bulk of the build. Even for the six foot long rafters, it was much cheaper to use two 2x4x8 economy studs than halving up one 2x4x12!

I had some old 2x6x12's on hand from our old fence which I used to build a footing on which to place the walls. I lap jointed the corners using my skill saw set to cut through precisely half the thickness of the board, then cleaning each join with a chisel.

Some wood glue and screws from both sides make for a very strong joint that wont pull apart during construction.

Next I  flipped the foundation over and installed 1/2” welded wire galvanized mesh attaching it to the foundation with screws and washers every six inches. This is to help prevent rodents from burrowing into the greenhouse planters.

This mesh will wrap up the outside of the walls approximately six inches. If that's not high enough I can add more mesh along the outside later.

Flipped back over ready to build.

Next was framing up the walls out in the driveway. I used the economy grade 2x4’s trimmed down to create a seven foot wall including the top and bottom plates. I laid out the walls on 24" centers which should be plenty strong for a greenhouse.

Double doors will create a 50” opening for moving planters/etc in and out with ease. I'll be building a ridge beam roof so I installed a double 2x6 header over the doorway, then added an extra stud in the rear wall to pick up the point loads of the ridge beam support columns.

Test fitting my mock-up rafter!

Bulk of the strapping nearly complete on the outside walls. As there isn't any strong exterior sheeting, the strapping will help keep the structure stiff while also providing attachment points for the plastic greenhouse panels.

Starting to wrap the anti-critter mesh up onto the walls.

June 29th: Ridge beam and support columns installed. I put together the support columns and the 45 degree supports on my workbench in the garage to ensure they would be straight and true.

For the rafters I chose an eve-less design which seems to be pretty consistent in all of the greenhouse builds I looked at.

Rafters cut and installed along with first two tiers of roof strapping!

Test area for the final colour:

Thompson's Nutmeg Brown (left over from re-decking my Mission trailer) which has since been reamed Chesnutt brown is semi-transparent wood protector.

This will not only make the greenhouse look great but should provide some protection from the elements outside, and damp conditions and condensation inside.

All but one wall complete.

Since it called for rain overnight and into the next day, I moved a bunch of strapping inside to get it stained and ready to install during the next step.

At this point I'm nearly ready to install the greenhouse plastic. First I have to finish installing blocking in the walls for the planter boxes, and finally framing out the strapping onto which I'll secure the plastic sheeting.

This turned out to be a tedious time consuming process but will make for a great quality job when finished. The plastic will effectively be sandwiched between an inner and outer layer of strapping so that it's not easily damaged during our very cruel winter wind storms.

For an extra measure of rigidity I installed hurricane ties which is something all of our crew has done on our shed builds. These are not expensive at all and provide great peace of mind when those Newfoundland winds hit triple digits!

Prepping the final pieces of strapping.

July 7th: That's it for now. We are finally ready to install the roll-plastic for the walls, and double layer panels for the roof so stay tuned for updates!

Update:

July 8th: Vonstruction continues today with the installation of roll plastic for the walls. This is a temporary solution in the interest of being economical and getting this project functional this year. Double wall greenhouse panels have become very expensive locally, even purchasing online would add approximately $400-500 in expense to close in the walls.

I did purchase double wall panels for the roof, which is the hardest area to reach and an area that can use as much support as possible. I plan to recover the walls in a year or two using the same panels.

I used a couple rolls of Clear Gorilla tape to strengthen areas around the door and corners to help prevent the staples from pulling through the plastic on a windy day.

The wall plastic runs up the roof approximately 6" over which the roof panels will overlap creating a water tight seam.

An outer layer of strapping helps prevent the plastic from bellowing which can lead to tearing.

First double wall roof panel installed!

Silicone applied to create a watertight seal will eventually dry clear.

More painted strapping covers each seam, these were installed with Stainless Steel deck screws found at our local Home Hardware.

To keep track of temperature remotely, I picked up a cheap weather station at Canadian Tire and mounted the outdoor remote sensor inside the greenhouse.

The display is located in our Kitchen for very convenient remote monitoring, I can even set an alarm if the temperature gets too high so I know to open the vents.

Next I began constructing the planter boxes. I first installed leftover plastic on the walls, this way if the plywood planter box rots out it should help prevent damage to the structure of the greenhouse.

A 2x4 board was added to the top edge of the planter box to provide extra strength against the weight of the soil to be placed inside.

June 12th: With time pressing on and daytime temperatures regularly between 25-30ºC it was time to fill the planters and transplant the pepper and mini tomato plants.

Topsoil was wheeled in from the driveway, while a fresh load of 1/2 city of St. John's compost and 1/2 peat moss from the Goulds was added to the planters in alternating layers and thoroughly mixed.

Testing out a plan for cleaning up/finalizing the appearance of the greenhouse.

Next I needed a set of doors for the 50" opening. I constructed two door frames from 2x3 material utilizing very strong lap joints glued and screwed at each corner.

The center of each door will receive a piece of double wall greenhouse panel, for aesthetics I chose to recess the panel from the inside for a clean flush finish.

Finally I needed to add a high vent on the rear wall to aid in regulating temperature of the greenhouse to prevent overheating of our plants during these ever hotter summer days.

The door is hinged and can be opened easily from inside with a rope.

A couple bungee cords and hooks allow the doors to be pinned open on very hot days.

A 2' square fan really helped on the hottest bright sunny days.

At this point the bulk of construction on the greenhouse is complete and it is very functional. Over the summer I plan to finish out the skirting boards outside, and as mentioned earlier I'll swap the wall plastic out for double wall panels in the future.

Our poor grass certainly took a beating this summer, one of the hottest and driest on record.

In August I finally got around to installing skirting on the two side walls using recycled fence palings from a section of downed fence.

Sandra said I definitely couldn't mount my moose antlers on the greenhouse so I compromised and installed them on the greenhouse while she was at work.

First harvest of Tiny Tim Tomatoes! These are delicious and are doing much better than the sad beefsteak tomatoes planted outside in the garden.

In November I finally got around to finishing the skirting boards on the back wall of the greenhouse then getting it ready for winter.

Our tomato plants did very well this year, however our pepper plants suffered from aphids. This really did a number on them netting very little to harvest, I have a plan for that next year.

With the growing season finished, I pulled out the remaining now dead plants and installed a couple temporary vents. I'll be using the structure for storage over the winter so I cut a 2nd clear panel for the rear vent and installed an attic vent for the winter. Next summer I'll simply swap this panel for the solid one for regulating temperature from daytime to overnight.

All in all the greenhouse worked great and looks great. I have some plans for next year's pepper harvest to make the structure even more successful than it has been already!

December check-in: So far the greenhouse is holding up great and has survived two major December windstorms that packed 100kp/h winds gusting to 130 kp/h!

Cheers, MIKE