About 35 percent of American households grow their own food at home or participate in a community garden. One of the most significant problems these gardeners face is an inability to grow vegetables year-round. In areas where the winters are cold, it’s nearly impossible to produce anything outside during the coldest months.

One solution is building a greenhouse so you have a mix of starter plants for when growing season arrives and a warm, moist environment for year-round plant growing.

A DIY (do it yourself) greenhouse saves money and creates a greenhouse in the place and for the purposes you want. Take the following steps to build a DIY greenhouse:

1. Choose a Location

First, choose a location for your greenhouse. The greenhouse needs to have full sunlight but also be close enough to your home to run a power cord to it.

The area should also have good drainage. You don’t want mold in your greenhouse or mud surrounding the entry.

2. Decide on the Type of Greenhouse

You have several options for your greenhouse — four seasons, unheated and cold frames. A four-seasons greenhouse allows for a warm, moist environment over winter where you can grow tomatoes and greens.

An unheated greenhouse may keep things just warm enough to produce some winter crops, such as lettuce. A cold-frame works best to get an early start on the growing season and keep the frost off your plants.

For your design, you can choose a dome structure, a triangular frame or a standard building with a peaked roofover. Choose the style that fits best with your house and the space you have available.

3. Find Plans or Draw Them

Once you choose the type of DIY greenhouse you want, either find free plans online or draw up your plans. A cold frame can be as simple as two old window frames with the glass intact placed together in a teepee.

You can also sketch out a plan for your greenhouse on graph paper. Keep in mind the location you chose and how much space you have to work with.

You’ll also need to think through how large of a greenhouse you want. If you’re only growing a few plants for two people, you don’t need as much as if you’re growing vegetables for a family of 10.

4. Gather Materials

Buying a greenhouse package is expensive. However, you likely have items you can use lying around or can gather some reclaimed items fairly cheaply. Check out local salvage yards for old windows, for example. You can also use heavy duty plastic instead of glass to save money. While it isn’t as durable, and you’ll need to replace it occasionally, upfront it’s a much cheaper solution than a glass greenhouse.

Tell everyone you know about your project and ask if they have old windows or scrap lumber they’d like to donate. Check sites such as local Facebook classifieds and Craigslist for discounted materials.

People sometimes have material left over and sell it for a fraction of the cost of buying new. Save money any way you can on materials for the least expensive greenhouse possible.

5. Build the Frame

Measure and build the sides of your greenhouse according to the plan you’ve chosen. If you select a dome structure, you’ll work with rebar and hoops instead, but for a more traditional square or rectangle building, you’ll need to build the sides.

Once you have the sides constructed, raise them into their permanent location and secure them together. For a more permanent structure, you may want to lay concrete footers to secure the frame. Add the door and roof beams.

6. Add Plastic or Glass

Next, stretch the plastic from top to bottom, securing it at crucial points along the way. How you accomplish this varies by the plan you’ve chosen. If you’re building a dome structure, you’ll start from one side on the bottom, stretch a long roll of plastic up and over the dome and secure it on the other side’s base.

You will need ingenuity and a little building knowledge to create your own DIY plan. If you aren’t sure how to put a basic structure together, study YouTube videos or ask for help from someone with construction experience.

7. Choose Your Interior Layout

Once the greenhouse is up and sealed with plastic or glass, go ahead and start on the interior.

You can put shelves or raised beds down either side, create a U-shape or add another row down the center if you have space. Look at the layout you have and draw out some ideas. Make sure you allow enough room to reach all your plants efficiently.

8. Choose Your Floor

Think about what you’d like the interior of your greenhouse to look like. Do you want rows on the outside and a row down the center? The ground adds some moisture to your greenhouse, so you won’t want to cover every inch of it.

Some people add pea gravel or stones both for easier walking through the greenhouse and for additional heat during the colder months as the rocks can hold heat.

If you did a U-shaped layout, you might leave earth under the shelves or raised beds and place stone in the walking areas.

9. Add Heat

If you want your greenhouse to be a true four seasons greenhouse, during the coldest weather, run an extension cord and add a space heater to your greenhouse to keep your plants toasty.

Set the heater on the ground so the heat rises to the top of the greenhouse and it maintains a steadier temperature.

Get Started Today

A greenhouse you build on your own doesn’t have to be as complicated as the ones commercial growers use. You don’t necessarily need pulley systems and complicated glass panels.

Building a simpler, DIY greenhouse can save you money while still enabling you to growing your own vegetables all year round.

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Choose the Right Greenhouse Structure

One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make is which greenhouse structure to buy. These days there are many different options on the market, from top-notch greenhouse kits through to individually customized products, and everything in between. Each business owner will have different goals, budgets and desires, so you need to think about what will work best for you.

When researching greenhouses, consider what kind of insulation, heating, artificial lighting, humidifying, dehumidifying, and ventilation requirements you have; and how many exits you’d prefer. There are also standard four-sided greenhouses, as well as geodesic dome styles to choose from.

You should decide, too, whether you want a greenhouse with an easy-to-move internal infrastructure, for simple changes over time. Flexible greenhouse styles tend to be more scalable and can be changed according to the different life cycles of your plants or what you choose to grow as the months or years pass. Also, consider glazing. There are options like standard glass, safety glass, and polycarbonate.

Find the Perfect Site

Next, choose the site for your greenhouse with care. Look for a spot that gets plenty of natural sunlight, on each side of the structure. Avoid putting it anywhere that’s particularly close to things that can cast shadows, such as hedges, fences, trees, walls, buildings, and the like.

The foundation is also very important. You need to place your greenhouse on a base that is solid and well-built, and which won’t sink, sag, or move too much over time. For example, popular options include foundations made of concrete, brick, timber, or recycled plastic lumber.

Choose the Most Profitable and Consistent Plants to Grow

Because you’ll be running a venture, you also obviously have to be smart about the types of plants you grow. You need to select plants which will give you enough profit to make your business sustainable, and that are also consistent growers. After all, you must keep up supply to the retailers or other customers who buy from you regularly.

It’s also wise to consider limiting yourself to only growing a few specific crops. It typically is more cost effective and profitable if you stick with a limited selection you can grow all year round (you want to avoid seasonal interruptions where possible), that require the same conditions, and which you can get really good at nurturing. This will help you to develop a brand name and reputation, and to beat out your competitors.

Keep Pests at Bay

To ensure you enjoy maximum yields, you also have to keep pests at bay. While growing plants within a greenhouse certainly help to limit exposure, pests can still get in. For example, greenhouses can be breeding grounds for creatures like mealybugs, fungus gnats, leaf miners, spider mites, aphids, and thrips.

To reduce the risk of infestation, follow a few precautions. If you buy woody plants, such as gardenias, check them for pests before you introduce them to your greenhouse. All newly-purchased plants should also be placed in an area that has been quarantined off, as much as possible, from others, so that non-flying pests won’t be able to spread around crops. You should also consider utilizing biological pest controls in your greenhouse. Ladybugs, for example, can help to rid your structure of aphids.

Clean and Maintain Your Greenhouse

Lastly, cleaning and maintenance should be a regular business task that you or your employees look after. To enjoy optimal crop output, keep your plants healthy and thriving. For this to happen, you need to keep the space they’re growing in tidy, clean, and well-maintained.

For instance, wipe down the surfaces within your greenhouse on a regular basis (a natural cleaner such as vinegar works well), to keep insect eggs, spores, and bacteria away. At least annually you should also empty out and clean your whole greenhouse structure. Summer is typically a good time for this. When you remove everything, let the enclosure dry out, and then leave the space empty for a time, any lingering insects in the area will leave. After this, scrub things down and return your plants to the structure. This will also help to preserve the glass and the framing in the greenhouse better too.

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