We really don’t know when disaster strikes, one of the most important things to prepare is to have a self-sufficient food. Nowadays, making your own greenhouse is quite popular where you can produce your own food. But sometimes, looking for cheap greenhouse plans is hard.
There are different aspects to look at when it comes to building a greenhouse and one of them is the financial aspect. Not all people are eager to build one as this might be costly for them.
As the importance of having survival skills grows, people are becoming aware of the need to live an economical and simple life.
It’s also important to produce your own food and the best way to keep it fresh and lasting is to have an underground greenhouse.
As much as possible, keep your greenhouse concealed to avoid from others who have bad intention specially aftermath of a disaster.
With building underground greenhouse plans, you can have round the year gardening and have fresh vegetables and fruits constantly for your consumption.
It uses the cool weather below the ground in keeping the plants growing all year long.
In building an underground greenhouse, you need to ensure that it is a few feet in the ground and has a sloping roof which should be made from clear, corrugated roofing.
Underground Greenhouses are usually known as Walipini which means the place of warmth. It was first created in South America, in the cold, mountain regions over 20 years ago. This allowed for the developing of a productive garden all year-round.
The fact that the greenhouse is made underground and in the earth, means that it taps into the thermal mass of the earth ensuring that less energy is needed to heat it up, which means that in winter, enough heat is generated to allow growing of food, also in the summertime, the cool earth temperature keeps the greenhouse from becoming too hot.
Advantages of having an underground greenhouse
They are Great for any weather
The underground greenhouse is great for any climate as it draws its warmth from the earth, giving you food all year-round.
Underground Greenhouse has Good Insulation
The greenhouse is 6-8ft below the surface and the earth’s temperature changes once you dig that far in. The temperature can be kept between 50-60 degrees which are a warmer temperature than the aboveground greenhouses.
Greenhouse Protects against Chemicals and Pests
This is one big advantage the underground greenhouse has over the usual greenhouse. You do not have to worry about chemicals sprayed nearby ending up on your plants. Also, pests will have a very hard time getting access to your greenhouse.
The Greenhouse needs little maintenance
Building an underground greenhouse has the advantage of needing little maintenance. This is due to the fact that it is not exposed to the elements. Only the roof is exposed and will need maintenance.
☀ How to Build a Cheap Small Greenhouse ☀
Below are the different steps which will tell you how to build a small greenhouse. When you have settled on the spot where to place the greenhouse, dig a big hole at the spot.
• Make a hole two feet below the planned depth of the greenhouse.
• Make sure the walls are sloped at least 6 inches between the roof and the floor.
• You can use any material like clay, bricks or anything that can trap heat to build the walls and stabilize them, which will keep them from caving in.
• Use the deeper part of the dug up soil to build the north wall of the greenhouse and the top part of the soil to pack up the floor of the greenhouse.
→ The next step is to start planning the drainage of the greenhouse.
• Fill up the extra two feet hole you dug with gravel, put the coarse gravel at the bottom and the finer one on top.
• Place 8 inches of soil on top of the gravel.
• Make sure the perimeter has up to 2-3 feet of gravel to improve drainage.
→ If an irrigation system is part of your cheap greenhouse plans, start by digging the trenches and install the hoses and piping.
• The first step is to dig trenches around the garden, make the trenches a few inches deep.
• Make sure that all the trenches feed into one of the trenches at the end of the garden.
• Place PVC pipes in the trenches
• Make sure that all the ends of the hoses are capped and that all the PVC connectors have been sealed.
• Do not connect more than 100 feet or pipes in order to maintain adequate water pressure.
• Create 1/16 holes into the pipes and any other hoses that don’t have the holes, make the holes 5 feet apart in groups.
Lastly, the following materials should be installed to the faucet in order for the irrigation system works. Make sure a hose is attached to the pressure regulator.
backflow,
timer to determine the timings of watering start and stop.
regulator
→ The next step is how to install the doors:
• Create the ramp or staircase at your chosen location.
• Then build the frame of the door at the base of the ramp.
• If you find any space around the frame, fill them up with soil in order to prevent any escape of heat.
• Then the next step is to secure the frame to the wall by drilling holes into the sides and use stakes in attaching them to the wall.
Then the last step is to install the roofing of the greenhouse.
• The berm should be at an angle between 53-73 degrees.
• Then you add 23 degrees to the latitude and determine the angle you want your roof inclined.
• The frame of the roof can be made from wood, PVC pipes, and metal hoops.
• Then the frame of the roof can be covered in plastic, glass or polyethylene making sure that it goes past the edge by at least 1 foot on all sides.
• You can also place plastic sheets on the underside of the roof frame.
• Place a rain gutter along the bottom edge of the greenhouse, it will catch the water from the roof and direct it away from the building.
So there you have it, details on how to build a small greenhouse, also remember to include ventilation plans in your building if you don’t install electric ventilation systems.
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