Constructing A Temporary Greenhouse

The season is rapidly cooling here and nights have been dipping down into the thirties here in the past few weeks.  There was frost on my car just a couple nights ago, though I got lucky and didn't get much damage in the garden.  It was my wake up call to get some protection over my warm weather crops like the tomatoes and the peppers.  Those two crops were very slow to get going this year, and I was hoping for bigger harvests off of them before the year was through.  To help them out I decided that I needed to cobble together a greenhouse to help protect them from the cooler nights as well as boost thier heat during the day.

I started by pounding some two foot legnths of rebar into the ground outlining the bottom of the greenhouse.  I was happy that I planted the tomatoes and the peppers in adjacent beds because it meant that I could build the greenhouse around both the beds and still have a walking path down the middle.  Once I had the rebar where I wanted them, I slid the pvc pipes over the ends and bent them towards the center where I connected some of the ends with T connectors.  The center pole was connected with a cross connector and the end poles were secured to the T-posts that were doing double duty supporting the tomato trellis.  The framework was further secured with some recycled baling twine.  Once the framework was finished, I covered the frame with a pair of clear plastic painters tarps.  The sides were weighed down with rocks and the plastic was secured to the frame with some clamps.  The ends were rolled up and weighed down with rocks as well, but I rolled the ends in a way that made them able to be left a little open to ventilate during the heat of the day.  I just need to unroll the ends a little bit to close it up for the evenings.

Now that I have this greenhouse in place I will be able to enjoy a little longer growing season for my tomatoes and peppers.  Perhaps I will be able to can many jars of tomato sauce yet!