Maintenance of Your Backyard Greenhouse

Owning and running their own backyard greenhouse is an aspiration of thousands upon thousands of gardeners. As soon as you have your backyard greenhouse built you will often find that many problems can arise and usually all at once. Maintaining and preserving your backyard greenhouse is all-important if you do not wish to be mending your greenhouse when what you'd really want to be doing is managing your greenhouse operation & growing healthy green plants. There are several different parts of your greenhouse that will require some more maintenance than others.

Maintenance of the Greenhouse Frame

The greenhouse frame is one of the most important parts of the backyard greenhouse, but generally doesn't require a whole lot of greenhouse maintenance. To maintain the frame of your greenhouse, it should be checked often for any corroding, rusty parts or rot setting in. This would naturally hinge upon the very building materials you built your backyard greenhouse out of. Lubricate any moving parts that look like they need it. If any rust or corrosion is allowed to set in you may find that the part will need to be replaced instead of just repaired. If you find any fractures or cracks in the backyard greenhouse frame, you'll want to repair or shore up those also before any real damage to your backyard greenhouse can occur. If you locate any fasteners that may have come loose, those should be tightened also. And it wouldn't hurt to try to find out why they came loose in the first place.

Maintenance of Greenhouse Glazing

The greenhouse glazing should be regularly inspected for any tearing and if any tears are found, either repaired with the appropriate tape or removed and replaced with another sheet of greenhouse plastic. If the plastic of your backyard greenhouse does come loose, you want to secure it to prevent any further rips or tears in the future. Always keep the greenhouse covering good and clean. The plants inside of your backyard greenhouse will not grow as well with a dirty greenhouse cover.

Always perform the required maintenance on your backyard greenhouse to prevent needless greenhouse repairs.

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PVC Greenhouse Plans

Building a backyard greenhouse using PVC might be an option for some. You can find a wealth of PVC greenhouse plans free through a simple web search. I particularly like some of the lean-to pvc greenhouses that attach to your shed or garage. A lean to greenhouse gives you much more stability than building a free-standing greenhouse. And if you're lucky, the majority of wind will be blocked by the structure the greenhouse is attached to.

Speaking of wind. PVC greenhouses need to be secured very well to stand up to strong winds. I've personally seen and also heard rumors of many that rip the plastic off. Or even worse, tear the whole greenhouse down. Sometimes snapping and breaking in many pieces. So do yourself a favor and plan on securing your greenhouse very well. You'll just sleep easier knowing your backyard greenhouse is nice and secure.

You should also be aware when building a PVC greenhouse that you can purchase specialized PVC fittings for use when assembling your greenhouse. So put away that duct tape you were planning on using and go ahead and spring for some PVC greenhouse fittings. Again, you'll just sleep easier.

One other thing you should think about when planning your PVC greenhouse is your greenhouse plastic and how you will secure it. Once more, there are specialized fittings for this that are available and you should seriously consider ordering some of the for your greenhouse. Or you could just do your own thing and take your chances....

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Planning a Backyard Greenhouse

Before you start building a greenhouse or even go searching for greenhouse plans, you really need to think long & hard about your future greenhouse and how you plan to utilize it. You'll need to give some consideration to such things as:

• Location of your greenhouse.
• What types of plants you will be growing & which type of greenhouse would work best.
• Whether you will need to heat your greenhouse in the winter. If so, what type of heat source to use. Will you want to build a passive solar greenhouse?
• Leaving yourself room for expanding your backyard greenhouse in the future should you find yourself needing more room (a very common occurence).
• Whether you might need any building permits.
• The layout of your greenhouse building site.
• Your local climate and how it will affect the plants growing in your greenhouse.
• If you should plan to expand in the future, is there a willing supply of workers in your area with greenhouse experience?
• If you plan to sell plants directly from your greenhouse, is there going to be any accessibility issues?
• Will you have an ample supply of water for the plants in and around your greenhouse? Also consider the quality of the water that will be delivered to the greenhouse to grow your plants.
• Think about how any trees or outbuildings around the greenhouse might overshadow the greenhouse.

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Backyard Greenhouse Benefits

Listed below are some benefits to owning your own backyard greenhouse:

• A backyard greenhouse gives you the ability to start seeds much earlier every year so you can get a jump start on the growing season.
• You have more control over the growing climate of the plants growing in your greenhouse.
• If you grow your own vegetable plants, some of them can be moved into your greenhouse to extend the growing season.
• If you take cuttings of plants to propagate, a greenhouse offers a better controlled environment that these plants will appreciate.
• You save money by starting your own plants and conditioning them for the outdoors in your greenhouse versus buying your plants from the store.
• Vegetable plants grown in a greenhouse can be better protected from garden pests than those growing out in the garden.
• Instead of relying of run-of-the-mill plant selections at your local stores, you can choose which varieties of plants you want to grow from seed.
• Depending on your location, some cold hardy crops can be grown inside your backyard greenhouse throughout the winter. Even more grocery savings!
• Plants grown in a greenhouse are protected from animal pests such as deer, racoons and stray pets.
• When you step into your backyard greenhouse, all the stress of the outside world suddenly melts away. That alone is one of the greatest benefits of a backyard greenhouse!

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Passive Solar Greenhouse Plans

What is a passive solar greenhouse? It's basically a greenhouse that doesn't use an external heating source like propane or electric heaters. A passive solar greenhouse utilizes the heat from the sun and stores it in a liquid or solid material. It is slowly released from the material mass to help keep the greenhouse warm in cooler temperatures.

A passive solar greenhouse needs to be well insulated to use the solar heat effectively. Unlike a regular greenhouse where you can just crank on the heat when needed, a passive solar greenhouse doesn't give you that option. Unless of course, you use an electric or propane heating source backup, which really the defeats the purpose of passive solar

Research these free greenhouse plans and build your own backyard greenhouse.


Your passive solar greenhouse should be situated where it receives the maximum availability of sunlight during cold weather. On surfaces of the greenhouse that do not collect solar heat, you need to insulate these very well. These areas are only a source of heat loss in cold temperatures if not insulated properly. You greenhouse glazing should give you maximum control of minimizing heat loss.


Solar Storage Materials

A variety of materials can be used to store solar heat. If you plan to use water as your passive solar storage material, you 'll find that water stored in black 50 gallon barrels seems to be the best choice for the average greenhouse grower. These will need to be placed in line with the sun to catch the maximum amount of heat. A combination of 50 gallon barrels and milk  jugs painted black is a combination that works well for some. The solar heat is absorbed quicker in the smaller gallon jugs and work for you to catch and hold maximum heat on partly sunny to cloudy days. ~more to come~

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