This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We're going to talk about greenhouses, so
you can see the greenhouse behind me. This is the standard size, smaller size, I think
it's the six by eight Harbor Freight greenhouse, and it's served me very well, it's actually
the first greenhouse I ever bought, and ya know it's a very good affordable price in
the 200 dollar range with a coupon at Harbor Freight Tool. I do have videos reviewing this
greenhouse and my other larger one that we're going to review in a second, but the reason
for this video is because, ya know, I want to teach you guys to do it right the first
time, and don't do it like I did. Ya know, I bought a smaller one, and ran out of room,
and then I bought a larger one, ran out of room. So now I have a space in my yard, so
I got another smaller greenhouse, but not as permanent as one of these guys. So, this
video is actually going to be assembling that unit and sharing with you guys how it works
and how it goes together because it is an affordable option for you guys out there.
Now greenhouses and coup houses and high tunnels, whatnot. They can be used to keep your plants
warmer. Especially during the winter. They can just by having the greenhouse, they can
keep the temperature warmer by 10 degrees to 15 degrees depending on the greenhouse,
and whether it's in full sun or not. On average, warmer. So if you get down to like, freezing.
Now you have ya know 10 degrees above freezing in your sealed off greenhouse. So, what this
enables me to do, is it allows me to grow some tropical plants that I wouldn't normally
be able to grow in the subtropical climate here. So if you live somewhere where it snows,
it may allow you to grow something more frost tolerant like the kales and the collared greens
and the broccoli and cauliflower, even things like leaks. Ya know, that you couldn't grow
if it was snowing outside. So, highly encourage you guys to get a greenhouse, ya know, also
it's useful for also starting seedlings and that sort of stuff as well. So anyways, let's
show you guys the large greenhouse, and then let's get to building the new greenhouse,
which I just bought.
Alright, so you can see behind me, my big, large 10ft by 12ft, and actually it's quite
tall, maybe 12ft tall, Harbor Freight greenhouse. Now if you are going to get a greenhouse,
highly encourage you guys to save up your money to buy a large greenhouse. Now this
is like the most economical, meaning lowest cost, largest greenhouse that I can find.
Now the quality isn't that great, but it does work. Ya know, since the past year or two
it's been up, I have noticed that the panels may be clouding up just a little bit. Now
that might just be a good thing, so that things don't burn during the summertime, but the
main thing is it's keeping my plants alive, and that's the main job of the greenhouse.
Now, when you buy it you may have to make some small improvements, such as the panels
fly off. Ya know, if there's too strong a wind, so using extra clips. Actually we've
been gluing in with silicone some of the panels, and also sealing off the edges of some of
the panels so there could be know air in there. I've a special tape that I use, a waterproof
tape, and I did make a video on that if you are interested in the special kind of tape
I use. Other than that, it's going well and doing really great, but it lasts, it's full.
The jungle around me is overgrown. It's actually grown a lot, cause I guess I've got some green
thumbs. So today's project is going to be building a new greenhouse that I bought actually
at Home Depot about, I don't know, last year I had a video about when they started selling
it for I don't know, about $139.99, and later this year, a year later. They clearanced it
out for 50 bucks. So, ya know, I saw a greenhouse for 50 bucks, I couldn't walk away. So I bought
it. I doubt that they have any left since they've been clearenced out for a while, so
next we're going to show you about that greenhouse, and show you how easy to build without any
tools. Now we're going to build the new greenhouse that I bought, and it's called the Spring
Gardeners Greenhouse. It says, 'Grow a Beautiful Assortment of Plants, Flowers, Vegetables,
Save Money, Eat Healthy, Have Fun. It's easy with the Spring Gardeners Greenhouse. Assembly
is a Snap. No Tools Needed. Lightweight and Portable Even After Assembly'. 5Ft width by
6ft long, and 6.5ft high. So that's 5x6x6.5. So that's a decent size and this is just a
small space that I have for this, and it's going to fit perfectly, now this one, like
the other ones, is going to have, like a dual pane poly-carbonate style. Basically Plexiglas,
ya know sheeting, and ya know, that's a lot more durable, and that's going to keep a lot
more heat in than this. This is just a simple, like, plastic type covering. So it's not going
to stay quite as warm, but nonetheless, putting this thing up is going to give me a couple
degrees to keep some of my plants alive through the winter time. So I guess the cool thing
about this is that there's no tools required. So the other greenhouses from Harbor Freight,
it's a little bit intensive. The instructions were not the best, so I encourage you guys
to look up online instructional videos or webpages that explain how to assemble those
guys. This guy says no tools, so I'm going to do it with no tools. So I'm going to show
you guys how it is, so especially if you don't own tools, or want just something temporary.
Cause I see this as more of a temporary greenhouse structure than something that's going to be
long lasting especially for the price. $130 retail, and they do make still greenhouses
like this in larger sizes. The same company, probably about the same exact kind of thing
just larger. So, ya know, that is an option for you if you don't want to do any tools,
and you maybe rent the place, it might be a good thing to get one of these instead of
the Harbor Freight greenhouses which can be a pain to disassemble and reassemble if you
do have to do that later on. So lets sit down where we're going to assemble this, get the
parts, and start assembling. Now we're going to go ahead, and build this quote-unquote
greenhouse here. And what we're going set this next to one of my sheds here. This will
actually keep it warmer than say keeping it out in a field. It's also a little bit shadier
here. I might actually use this next season for some of my seedlings because it'll actually
stay warm and not get to much sun where the seedlings may burn, but it'll get some nice
partial shade, plus one of the trees above me here, will not have any leaves in the spring
time, because it will drop it's leaves because it's an apricot tree. So let's go a ahead
and open this guy up and see what we got inside. OK, be careful when opening this guy up, because
the greenhouse material is right there and if you cut it up you might actually pop a
hole in it somewhere, though I'm actually going to peel this stuff up, and not use the
knife here. We got all these pieces here, and I can't believe there's no tools required,
you can see this is the top of the greenhouse here, it's still kind of taped in, and we've
got all of the brackets, and whatnot. It's going too be interesting to assemble, and
the first thing we're going to do is read the directions. OK, so basically it's a fairly
easy construction, we're going to take these pieces which are conveniently labeled and
you're going to basically put all the different parts in there, and then you're going to take
the nuts here, and it says no tools because these are actually wing nuts and you can hand
tighten them. So I'm assembling the unit and these are the rafters this is actually the
top, and this is actually going together quite easily, and this is quite sturdy without using
any tools actually. I'm quite impressed, basically this is the main piece for the rafters, you
put it in the sides right now, and all you do is you find the part number and this says
actually E on the bottom, and you find the part. This is an A, nope. Oh, here's the A,
you want an A part, and all you do is you stick the A part into the tube, that you want
it, make sure that it seats all the way in there and then you're just going to take one
of the screws with the wing nuts, and you're just going to take one of these guys, and
you want to make sure not to cross-thread these. That the biggest issue you could have.
Then you want to take your time, and screw it in, and actually you do not want to tighten
these because it will probably start to cross thread or strip it. If you tighten it too
hard you're going to break the welds that hold the nuts on. I'm tightening until it
hits, then maybe a quarter turn. You're going to break your bones before you break this
piece of steel, and I mean it's tight and it's in there. It's pretty dang'on solid.
So, yeah we're going to go ahead and continue on, and get this thing built right up. So
I've got this whole structure built and here is the last wing nut, and basically this went
together without any tools accept for the second to last wing nut. Which actually I
didn't cross thread, but the nut was actually kinda funky, so I actually had to us pliers
to get it in, but other than that this went together without any tools. This is a really
simple construction, basically what this is is one of those temporary car port thing to
store your car under. It's just framing, it's very durable. They have a bottom piece on
there and actually two holes that actually anchor this down into the ground, which I
highly encourage you guys to do. And that's pretty much it, and all we have to do is put
the top on and we're pretty much set up. Up to this point, it took me about a half hour,
with to people it would even go faster, but just put some music on and enjoy building
my new greenhouse. Definitely simple. We're down to the last step, and then we're just
going to tak e the cover out of the plastic here, and we're just going to go ahead and
slide this puppy over the top and secure it with these anchors, and then we'll be all
finished. As you can see we've got the top on now, as you can see you could probably
do it with one person, but I did it with two so as to not snag and put any holes in this
plastic. That's definitely one thing you don't want to do is try to repair this, it's going
to be a pain in the arse. So anyway once you have this over the top, they have these securing
straps, Velcro straps that you need to put on so we'll take you inside the greenhouse
and show you how to put those on too. Once inside there's 2 things you'll have to do,
you'll have to use these little straps which are a little tricky, but they're simple to
use, and the other one is these little Velcro things. There's two on each downright or each
corner. I like to pull that tight and put the Velcro on then hold it down and Velcro
it in place. It'll hold, so there's two of these on each one and there's all those little
twisty thingies. So we'll go ahead and show you guys how to do those next. Next thing
we have to do is put on these elastic things and it's very simple, there's a ball on them
that goes around and kind of loops over like this kinda hold it nice and taught. I like
things nice and taught, and what we're gonna do is basically put this through one guy and
it comes to the gromet here. You ever see that show Wallace and Gromet? It's a funny
show, but what we're going to do is just snap it up and it goes on and it's actually a auto-tightening.
I don't know if you'll be able to see this on the camera there, might be out of the range,
but this is very simple. There's a total of 36 of these, so ya know, you'll get the hang
of it, goes on really easy, and it looks nice and tight. Now we've got all the straps on,
everything in place. Now we're going to go over a couple last things for you. Number
1: there is an overhang, approximately about 4 inches that actually hangs in. I guess you
could actually make it hang out if you desire, and the other thing is they have some holes
to actually anchor the corners down. What I'm going to probably do is I should get some
4x4 wood and just basically frame out the whole bottom, and actually screw this into
the 4x4 and screw the 4x4 framing on the bottom together so it's nice a strong foundation.
In addition once I do that, this should no longer drag on the floor, but come down to
the base of that 4x4, so that's not actually really smart. If you want a more permanent
installation. You could use some bricks or something like that, but I like this a lot.
Next we're going to go ahead and show you the outside shot, and I'll give you the summation
or my summary of what I thought of this greenhouse for the price and the assembly. All that jazz,
as my grandma used to say.
Alright, putting the last touches on the new greenhouse here, and oh I wanted to mention,
first off. They give you 36 of these guys, but you only actually use 28, so don't be
alarmed if you have extra pieces. These are probably just for use if they wear out, or
the sun, ya know, degrades them. The cover piece is supposed to be UV resistant, and
that's my main concern on, ya know, how long this thing will actually last. This guy retails
at Home Depot for $139, and for that price it's probably a pretty good investment, but
I got it for 50 bucks on clearance. Definitely got my vote for buy. Maybe 80 bucks, definitely
a good investment. For a hundred, ya might want to think about it. You also might want
to think about this: If you can get this greenhouse up and it allows you to start you plants earlier
it'll increase your harvest and you'll probably make at least that much in food depending
on how many plants you'll have planted out for this season. Another thing to think about
is, ya know, it's warmer on the inside, it's getting cooler, the sun is going down, the
winds out, and it's definitely warmer. So that's definitely gonna be a for sure. It's
probably not going to be as warm as my regular greenhouses, but for a temporary or for me
it's going to be a permanent structure, we're going to see how long it lasts. I think it's
great. The whole unit has a one year warranty so if it should wear out or if it should degrade,
and I'm concerned maybe about this nylon stuff here. If it's going to leak under, ya know,
hard rains or whatever, but if it leaks, no big deal. I do like that it's actually 6 and
a half feet tall so unless you're a giant, you know you can walk down the middle, and
not hit your head, and there's enough room on both sides to have like a nice shelving
system on there so you can grow a lot of plants inside there. Another really good idea is
to use something like another $20 quote-unquote greenhouses that I showed at big lots a while
back. They're basically a PVC or vinyl cover over racks, and if you actually put that in
here you'd actually have double greenhouse so it would stay particularly warm inside
the double greenhouse. I like that a lot, basically it has a 2 zipper sides and you
could actually roll this stuff up and keep it open. You could probably use it to store,
you know, your tractor or lawnmower if you still got one. I'd encourage you guys to take
out your lawn and put in a garden instead. Anyway, I've had some fun actually building
this guy, hopefully you've got some hints and tips about building it, how it works,
and it definitely was easy to assemble. So even if you're a lady, you could definitely
assemble one of these guys, no tools required, and I guess the biggest bonus of this guy
is if you have a husband or wife and if you don't have a dog and you want to send them
to the doghouse for the evening, just send them to the greenhouse.
Any case, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of learning how to grow food in a greenhouse
and learning how to build on too. Greenhouses to me are imperative to keep some of my plants
alive, to extend my growing season, and just to have more food growing in general. So once
again my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll see you next time, and remember, keep
on growing.