Over the years I seem to have acquired a few potted plants that I enjoy on our patio and around the firepit area. The challenge is when it comes fall, I then must bring them in or lose them to the frost. Up until last fall, I would store my menagerie of plants in our mud room which is located between the garage and the family room. At first this worked out okay but funny thing about plants, they grow! So, each year it become harder and harder to navigate through the mudroom as my juggle of greenery took over the tiny space.

It was on a visit to my mom’s house that I took notice of her greenhouse which she constructed inside her garage. That was a EUREKA moment for me and I thought, if mom can build a green house, then why can’t I? And thus, my urban greenhouse got underway. In the end, I designed it and Andy built it. With design and measurements in hand, Andy began constructing first the 2x4 frame, it is square in shape and is approximately 10 – 12 feet high. We have a ply-wood roof from which we have a grow light and several heat lamps suspended. Two of the walls are the walls of the garage with one having the door to our patio thus making it easy to move the plants in and out. Our house is a relatively new build, so the door is well insulated as is the other wall of the green house. I do think I will hang a frost blanket over the door this year for extra protection. The other two walls are constructed with plastic tarp, the kind that house painters use to cover the floor. The plastic is stapled along the top of the greenhouse on the roof and all along the sides with the opening into the interior of the greenhouse consisting of overlapping plastic, this helps to keep the cool air out when one is coming in and out of it. I have a frost blanket stapled over the plastic for extra insulation. It’s a simple construction but it works! We did have one instance last winter when the temperatures dipped well below zero and we had to scramble to get another heat lamp to keep the temperature in the greenhouse above 32 degrees, that’s when I added the frost blanket as an outer layer. We were successful for the most part, but a few plants did get a little frost burn from it and I lost a couple of the less cold tolerant plants but as a whole most survived that particular cold snap.

This year Andy and I decided to add a seed starter shelve with the goal of first trying to grow some late fall lettuce and then later come January or February we start out seedlings for spring. He likes to grow peppers and I will try my hand again at tomatoes, squash and perhaps some flowers. I had the brilliant idea last year to plant flower bulbs in all my pots so that come spring they would bloom, and I’d have earlier fresh flowers, but instead they bloomed in February and March so by the time spring came about the bulbs were all spent! I’ve decided to forgo that idea this year and instead experiment with flower feeds and veggies. In fact, the Tomatoes that made up my hanging tomato basket experiment were all started in my Urban Greenhouse this past winter!

So, there you go, if you ever find yourself in an urban setting, with little garden space or lawn area but you have an enclosed garage you too can make your very own greenhouse with very little expense and lots of gardening opportunity!

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