POLYCARBONATE GREENHOUSE OWN HANDS - EXPERIENCE AND SETS FROM "PROFESSOR"

Sometimes you have to hear: as soon as you imagine how much effort, time and money you need to spend on building a greenhouse, you will immediately go ready to choose. And she will not disappoint over the years, is she bought? And the costs are not as great as it seems. The author of the letter, having no construction skills, coped with the task successfully. Yes, and taught others!

LET ME INTRODUCE

I have long planned to share my experience with readers. And there is something to share, because I have more than two decades of gardening experience.

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We lived in the Far East for 15 years, and we had a small dacha there, only 5 acres. In the 90s, life was not fat, only the land helped out. It must be said that it was easy and simple to take it at that time: take it, develop it, build it, manage your household. Now it’s hard to take land for use, you won’t get it just like that, dear.

There, in the Far East, there is a lot of land, but only those who came from there know what conditions are there - sheer exoticism: hills, wild rosemary, rocky or wetlands. It is almost impossible to find good soil, free, fertile, and with communications connected. However, our people are hard-working - give them a piece of land, and - lo and behold! - a year later, there are already beds on the plot with greenfinch, and tomatoes, and the garden is laid. Yes, dear readers, in the Far East, in the Primorsky Territory, in the wonderful city of Ussuriysk, the climate is quite good for growing anything your darling wants - tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, and watermelons. Plums, pears, apple trees and even apricots grew in our country house. There were no peaches and other southern exotics: it is cold there in winter.

But the time has come, and we decided to move as a family to the west of the country. The choice fell on the northern capital of our Motherland, the wonderful city of St. Petersburg. Well, how the Far Eastern settlers settled down in a new place is another story. The children grew up and flew away from their parental home, and my wife and I decided that it was time for us to “go down to earth” again.

But St. Petersburg is not Ussuriysk with 150 inhabitants (now, however, there are more people there). Everything was very, very difficult, but I managed to buy a plot 100 km north of the metropolis. The soil here is the same - solid sand and gravel, swamps and boulders, but the places are beautiful. Boulders (if anyone does not know) are such pebbles left over from the Ice Age. The glacier rolled them, rolled, and rolled up to my site. Well, they are so small, as tall as I am. I think other summer residents got such “gifts” as well. Although, if such a “pebble” is located on your lawn, then it turns out very beautifully. And in general, these boulders fit perfectly into the exterior of the site.

Well, then everything, like everyone else: a temporary house, a lawn, birches and pines, a well with beautiful, clean and unusually tasty water (we were lucky with it) and, of course, beds. Then there were berry bushes, flowers, and so on. Isn't it true that everyone is the same? Someone will say that I didn’t surprise the readers with anything and didn’t write anything useful. Yes, memoirs, memoirs and an extract from the biography But I, so to speak, just introduced myself, and useful things are ahead.

As I already wrote, I am an experienced person. My respected neighbors even gave me a nickname - Professor. Probably, they are already tired of me: I don’t know how to express myself briefly, there is not enough conciseness. I'm a bore, I confess. Those who ask me questions about crop production, fertilizers, construction, and other topics run the risk of listening to an entire lecture. But nothing, they listen, they do not interrupt. Tactful people And now to business.

greenhouse from a profile for drywall and polycarbonate with your own hands subscribe :)

GREENHOUSE WITH YOUR HANDS - STEP BY STEP

At the beginning of spring, when it is still cold and too early to do dacha business, you can start preparing for the construction of a greenhouse. Of course, it’s easier to buy a factory one: there are a lot of greenhouses now, very different in size and shape. But I built mine (and I have two of them) myself, on my own. Size 8×4 m, height 3 m.

You don’t need much for this - only desire, materials that are now sold on every corner, the transport by which these materials will be delivered to your country house (I have an ordinary car and a standard trailer), and your golden labor pens. By the way, about the cottage and the trailer. My dear trailer, dear assistant! Why didn’t I carry on it! I have always compared the cottage with the desert, in which there is nothing. Everything needs to be bought and delivered. Transport is an expensive business, 100 km from the city after all. You can, of course, buy in other places, closer, but in a big city everything is always cheaper and there is more choice.

So, a greenhouse with your own hands. It will cost much cheaper than the factory (store). And yet - strong, reliable, durable. My greenhouses will be 10 years old this year. I think that two more times for so long will stand.

This greenhouse, like any other, it is desirable to put on a strip foundation, it can be on a columnar, or it can be on other types of foundations. Since I am used to doing everything thoroughly, I put my greenhouses on a strip foundation measuring 4 × 3 m. Height: 8-20 cm above the surface - a site with a slight slope. Width 40 cm.

To reduce financial costs, I used pebbles and rubble stone as a basis, which I collected on my own site during its planning.

During pouring, I installed sections of a metal profile pipe 4 × 2 cm along the entire perimeter. The distance between the pipes is 65 cm. These pipes are necessary for the subsequent attachment of arched pipes to them.

When the foundation was ready, I laid a board on top of it along the perimeter, carefully pre-treated with an antiseptic. Its height is 5 cm, width 15 cm. The board is necessary for the future fastening of arched arches and polycarbonate. I made holes in the board corresponding to the metal profile pipe, and put the board on these pipes. Pipes above the board should rise by 20 cm.

Then he put arched pipes on these metal pipes. Arched pipes made from a HDPE pipe for drinking water (with a blue stripe). Pipe diameter 63 mm, length 7 m (you can take a little longer, for example 3 or 7 m). The wall thickness of the pipe is 4-7 mm.

I give advice: do not buy a technical pipe, even if the sellers will actively advise you on it. It is made from waste products. Much cheaper, but at times inferior in strength to a pipe for drinking water.

In addition, under the influence of sunlight, the technical pipe becomes soft, and the greenhouse sags without additional supports. The snow load is also half that of a drinking water pipe. Buying a "drinking" pipe is easy, it is sold in many hardware stores. I bought at a construction base, immediately in a bay of 100 m. The rest after installation was only a few meters.

Pipes placed at a distance of 65 cm from each other. On the pipe, by the way, the footage is indicated through each linear meter, so it is easy to measure. At the bottom, I attached the pipes to a wooden board with corners.

The next stage - I fastened all the arcs to each other with wooden bars 5 × 5 cm long 6 + 2 m. I connected the bars with galvanized perforated plates, which are sold in any household goods. The ends of the greenhouse were also assembled from wooden bars.

I bought polycarbonate 4 mm thick, now a special one for greenhouses is being sold. To cover the greenhouse, you need 4 sheets 7 m long. The standard width is 5 m. As I already wrote, the length of the greenhouse is 2 m, the overlap of polycarbonate sheets was 1 cm. The edges of the polycarbonate are screwed with roofing screws to a wooden board lying and fixed on foundation.

Someone will say that there is too much polycarbonate left, because they sell it at 3, 6 and 12 m. However, I found a base in St. Petersburg where polycarbonate was cut into 9 m each. The trimmings went to the ends of the greenhouse. That's all.

GREENHOUSE WITH YOUR HANDS - SPACIOUS AND COMFORTABLE

Probably, someone will think: how difficult it all is. Not at all, just go and do it. I built greenhouses for the first time, I had never done this before. By profession I am a doctor, now a pensioner, a self-taught agronomist.

Please be patient, I'm about to finish. The greenhouse has three beds. The average is 1 m 10 cm wide, the two extreme ones are 75 cm each. And two tracks are 60 cm each.

The geometry is this (all in cm): 20 + 20 (foundations) + 75 + 75 (two extreme beds) + 110 (middle bed) + 65 + 65 (two paths between the beds) = 430 (greenhouse width).

The windows open automatically with the help of lifts (sold in specialized stores and markets, on the Internet). The beds are edged with flat slate.

I must say that in a greenhouse its height plays a big role: all plants need space, sufficient air access and, most importantly, the ability to reach for the light.

When growing grapes, for example. I grow it and am very happy with it. Yes, and cherry tomatoes stretch to a height of more than 2 m, like cucumbers, watermelons, melons. Yes, my dear readers and fellow gardeners, all this grows here in the north of the Leningrad Region, but only in closed ground.

I will return once again to the greenhouses I built. I am very pleased with them, everything grows in them wonderfully, fully matures, it is easy and convenient to take care of the plants. In terms of capacity: in the first greenhouse we have 10 bushes of wonderful varieties of grapes, 25 cucumber roots, several bushes of sweet pepper, eggplant, lettuce, basil and many other plants. In the second - 100 tomato bushes, physalis, celery and a few hot peppers. You can plant more, but why do we need so many? And so everything is in abundance.

OK it's all over Now. Please do not judge me strictly - as I could, I wrote it. What if you like my greenhouses? Neighbors adopted my experience, they are very pleased with the result and proud of themselves. Good luck to all!

Reference by topic: DIY greenhouse greenhouse - drawings (by ARCHITECT)