Victory Garden: recycled greenhouse
This is the greenhouse that I made from recycled paper and cello wrap.
A few weeks ago, my daughter and I started our seedlings. After a few casualties to our cats, I finally was fed up enough to build a greenhouse made entirely of materials that I found around the house. The main structure is made up of corrugated cardboard from cases of soda water and strapping tape. It works nicely, and protects the plans from cats and helps to conserve some of the water that would otherwise evaporate off if not in an enclosed area.
Materials:
Waste cardboard that is at least 14″ long and at least 12″ wide (you will need at least 4 pieces with these dimensions)
Strapping Tape
Cellophane Film (”Saran Wrap”)
A staple gun
- You will need to cut 16 14″ x 3″ strips.
- Roll each strip tightly and secure by wrapping them in strapping tape.
- You will then have 16 tape-wrapped tubes.
- The first thing you need to build is the base by making a square out of four of the tubes.
- Use strapping tape to lash the tubes together to form a square.
- Do this again to form the top of the greenhouse.
- You should now have two squares.
- This is the tricky part - attaching the two squares together with the corners of what will be the walls of the greenhouse.
- You will use strapping tape to lash things together.
- First lash the corner posts to the bottom square.
- Then lash the corner posts to the top square.
- I suggest that you use short lengths of tape to hold things in place while you secure things down.
- At this point, you will have a hollow cube.
- I made a pointed roof and lashed the tubes to each of the four corners of the top of the cube and then secured the center with more strapping tape.
- I then covered each of the faces of the cube and the roof with cellophane film by stretching a length of film across the face of the cube and securing it with the staple gun.
It’s very functional, didn’t cost me anything, and serves the cat-deterrent purpose rather well.
The seedlings are getting another week safely indoors before I put them in the garden. We’ve already put out collard greens, brussels sprouts, and two rather large tomato plants and so far they are doing quite well. Fortunately, we have good friends who had spare tomato seedlings to share so despite the cats’ best efforts, we will still have many tomato plants this year.
Tags: gardening, victory garden