My Greenhouse
Nobody needs a greenhouse. Oh sure if you are planning to grow plants, especially orchids, tomatoes or cucumbers commercially and you have the room then you need a greenhouse.
You can grow orchids, for your own use, quite successfully on a window sill, in the basement or where ever else you have room. In my spare room that serves as a computer room and as a general storage area I have a 3 level light table, but I wanted more. So over time (6 months) I managed to justify my having a greenhouse by telling myself and my life mate that I could over winter all my plants and give me something to do on those long cold dark winter days. I had no idea of a) how much it cost, b) where I was going to put it and c) how big I could go once I found a place to put it.
Costs: I knew that it would be more expensive than my parents 6' x 7' single pane glass greenhouse that they had bought 35 years ago. Beside doesn't each generation want more? I called around to the various garden supply centers and asked if they carried greenhouses, how much and the standard sizes. I also looked in the yellow pages for greenhouse suppliers. As well you need lights, heaters, foggers, fans and electrical outlets. So too, you will need backup heating should the power go out. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Where: Location, location, location -- on a 33' x 122' lot which includes the house and a 12 x 20 foot garage where do you put a cold-frame let alone a greenhouse? a pond? a patio? the flowers?
Out comes the graph paper (great invention), pencils, erasers (an even greater invention) and measuring tape. Oh -- and you need to sit down and DO it. Draw out the garden, to scale, with the immovable things such as garages, houses etc. drawn in. Then you cut some pieces of paper, to scale, representing the outside dimentions of the various sizes of greenhouses. You now have the means to figure out where the greenhouse could go and what size you can get in. Don't get too big. Remember "orchid collections expand, like the universe, to overfill the allotted space." and you will have to look after it.
After a lot of planning (by my wife), with each iteration (by me) it was getting more expensive, I finally settled on a 8' x 8' greenhouse (top of this page) on a North-South orienation in line with one side of the garage between the deck and garage. It would mean getting rid of two raised beds and not growing vegetables, but I have grown few vegetables due to too much shade and the weather in Vancouver is not always condusive to raising tomatoes and cucumbers. Besides if I want tomatoes I have the greenhouse.
So now I had the greenhouse decided as to size and location. Now for water and electricty which would have to be set up not only for the greenhouse, but also for the pond. By the way the entire front and back yards are getting a makeover therefore the time to get electricity and water into the greenhouse was when they redid the yard before the greenhouse went up. As there are no circuits left on the main board, I had the great idea of putting a second board in the garage and running everything from there. Also there is no water spigot in the back. I put one in myself, however the pipe is on the surface and in the fall I have to drain it so it doesn't freeze. Another item to put on the tobedone list: bring the water via a buried pipe to the back for the pond and the greenhouse as well as for general watering the garden.
As a total remake of the front and back yards was in order we decided to call in a professional landscaper and builder to plan and install everything that we wanted in an orderly and timely manner. This is not the most cost effective way of doing things if you are even the least little bit able to do things yourself. There are numerous plans for building greenhouses yourself, in fact all the commercially availiable greehouses come as DIY kits with installation extra.
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