Many gardeners use cold frames and quick hoops for season extension, but just beyond these is a simple and super-productive option for the home gardener: a small, low-cost, portable greenhouse. We’ve found that you can build a 10-by-12-foot greenhouse for less than you’d spend on a store-bought 4-by-4-foot cold frame. Our goals in designing this movable greenhouse were that it be simple to build with off-the-shelf parts, easy to move, easy to anchor and inexpensive.
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Similar to a cold frame, a simple greenhouse captures the sun’s heat and eliminates the drying, chilling effects of wind. You don’t even need to heat your greenhouse in winter if you plant hardy crops that are most content growing in cool weather. Come spring, you’ll get in those early crops even sooner than normal and you’ll transplant your warm-weather tomatoes earlier in the year. Then, sit back to wait for extra-early ripening.
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With a portable greenhouse, you get the positives of greenhouse growing — namely cold protection — while eliminating the negatives, such as the pest and disease buildup that can occur in soil that’s continuously covered. In addition, you increase the number of crops that can be sheltered by one greenhouse by covering plants only when they need protection.
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The frame consists of three half-circles of metal pipe attached to structural cross-pieces. A 10-foot length of pipe bends easily into a quarter-circle, and two of them form a half-circle hoop. We bend them the same way we bend our quick hoops, but we use a bender designed for high tunnels instead of low ones. For pipe, we prefer the 10-foot-long and 1-inch-diameter pipes used for electrical conduit (called “1-inch EMT,” which stands for electrical metallic tubing).
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Article source: Mother Earth News
Image source: Shawna Coronado