Planning your greenhouse is as much about the process as the result. From the outset we should be clear – this was our experience. It’s neither right nor wrong, neither the best solution or the worst.
Along the way we learnt many things and are happy with the end result.
Build or Buy?
So – a greenhouse it is then. Excellent. Buy one or build one? The big question. If you have only basic DIY skills you might need to accept that designing and building a greenhouse from scratch is a challenge too far.
You’ll need to be pretty confident with a range of skills and happy using power tools, as well as having a working knowledge of what is likely to stay up or fall down. If the latter, you’d be best ordering a ready-made one and having it put together for you. True, there is a large price tag to this, but a search of TradeMe will give you plenty of options.
We chose to design and build. We had three justifications: it was cheaper, we could get exactly what we wanted and we were lucky enough to be OK DIYer’s. We say ‘OK’ – not experts, just confident enough to give it a go. What follows is based on our design-and-build-it yourself experience.
Greenhouse Size
As with many things – bigger the better. The more room you have the more plants you can nurture BUT keep in mind you need a lot of vege patch outside to house them when they go from toddlers to teenagers! We don’t know the ratio of areas (we expect we’ll find out at the end of year 1 and let you know) but at the moment we have a greenhouse with about 3sqm of growing area for trays, compared to a vege patch of 30sqm – that’s 10:1. It feels about right as we hurtle into our first spring.
If you are limited to a small greenhouse (by which we mean say 2m x 2m) don’t despair – you can still grow plenty. Ours is just under 5m x 1.5m. It’s proven to be a great size especially as we have not been 100% successful germinating every variety so at any given time there is a fair proportion of trays with no life.
As with any room, make sure your greenhouse is tall enough to stand up in. There is enough bending over in gardening not to add to it.
Bigger also helps with storage – you can quickly build up an array of space-consuming items such as seed trays, pots (by the hundreds), seed mix, tools, stakes, string and of course those pesky plants, some of which have a habit of growing quite large quite quickly.
Positioning your greenhouse
It would be great to say it should face north by north-west where the wind does not blow but in reality your section will determine where it goes. The basics: not under a big shady tree or building, not right up on the fenceline to annoy your neighbours, not where the drainage is so poor it may as well be in a swimming pool.
You’ll already have an idea or two where it should be: ideally close to your vege patch and easily accessible.
We are NOT experts on building regulations, you should always seek an informed opinion, but what we seem to have picked up was a greenhouse needs a permit if it’s over 10sqm and it should be no closer to any boundary than its height. So if it’s 2m tall then it should be a good 2m from the boundary.
That’s what we did, and ours is about 7sqm.
READ MORE about our considerations and progress: Planning a Hot House: Water, Ventilation, Lighting and Building a Hot House – Glass or Plastic
