Justin Buist

It came together a couple weeks later than we’d originally planned, but it still should increase our plants’ growth this spring.

Behold:

Click to enlarge.

Okay, technically it’s not a greenhouse as it has no heat source. It’s a poly covered cold frame, but it still will allow us to get our raised garden going darned near a month before any sane person would be planting in Michigan. The idea is for it to keep the frost off the plants, not create a proper seed germination environment or anything complicated.

What you’re looking at is a really simple 4′x8′ raised garden made out of 2x6s and a few 4×4 posts. Pretty easy to build, and when I told my dad about it he asked if I was going to put some PVC hoops over it and cover it. Good idea. So, snagged 4 pieces of 10′ long 1/2″ PVC pipe and shoved them in there as hoops. Drilled some holes and stuck U-bolts in there to keep them upright, filled with black dirt, and then laid some plastic sheeting I got from Big Lots over it. Then we snaked a 50′ section of soaker hose in it, also sourced from Big Lots. After that a 1″x2″ piece of lumber (cedar in this case, because I couldn’t find anything else in that size at Home Depot) was placed along the sides atop the 2×6 and drilled down to secure the plastic. The ends at the front and back you can see that we’re holding it in place with some clamps. The idea there is that we’ll keep it closed up until about May 19 or so, and during the days after that remove the clamps, fold the ends over the top, and clamp it back to the PVC pipes to keep it from getting too hot. Close the plastic up and at the end of the day to keep the heat in. When June rolls around I’ll loosen the U-bolts remove the hoops and plastic, and throw them into storage for next year. I’ll probably need to stick small sections of PVC pipe into the existing holes to keep it from filling back in.

Watering everything will be easy: Just hook the garden hose up to the soaker hose and turn it on for 15 or 20 minutes every day.

Two other things: Yes, that’s an oil rig behind my house, and yes, I’m aware that a section of my fence is missing. I kicked it out in haste while chasing a cat one day and later screwed it back to the rest of the fence. Poorly. Chuck Norris knocked it down after that and I haven’t seen much point in replacing it, though my wife would probably like it put back up one of these days.

If this goes well we’ll probably build a 2nd one near it next year.