DIY Greenhouse: Spikey Style

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Thursday 05 December, 2013 by Uncle Spike

Like most things in life, I find if you scratch your head and think about something long enough, you can take on almost any challenge – or your head will just hurt and you’ll have given the old nits a run for their money. But that’s just how I live my life, and I guess the key to my success at reinvention. That’s not to say I’m perfect, crikey not even in the same ballpark on that score, but I am stubborn enough (or pig-headed enough some might say), not to give up on something.

In practical terms these days that translates into tackling all sorts of jobs simply due to the fact that I refuse to pay someone a wad of cash for doing something that they themselves had to learn; ergo, so can I. Plus we don’t have the cash spare; but that’s not always the main driver.

Examples of this include tree felling, welding, painting an entire house inside and out, plumbing, chain-link fencing and fruit farming to name but a few. I relish a challenge, and more than that, I love the feeling of achievement, especially as when we can’t afford to hire someone, actually doing stuff ourselves is the difference between a job actually getting done, or not!

One case in mind was our little greenhouse. In rural Turkey you won’t find posh little glass greenhouses delivered on a Saturday morning from your local DIY Superstore. None of that. This is serious fruit farming territory with hand-me-down know-how and apart from us and one other I know, every other smallholding are local mountain village folk who wouldn’t know “DIY” if it grew feathers are flew around the farmyard. 

We are therefore a bit of an oddity around these parts; but people seem to respect us, even if they can’t quite understand us (like why our veggies are in stupid neat rows and why we have names for the chickens etc).

Most people don’t bother with greenhouses, for we don’t have cold winters here so guys just grow whatever crops they can according to the climate. There are some tomato farms here with massive greenhouses, but I don’t know anyone else in the village with one like ours, lol… 

We made it ourselves from scratch, me and Aunty Spike working together. It was a bit awkward, a bit of a challenge, but it worked and is still in use 4 years down the line. 

First we selected a site, got it clear of rocks (i.e. pick-axe job for 2 days – foothills, so rocks and more rocks).

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CHOOSING THE SITE – BY THAT BIG ROCK

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Then it was off to the builders merchants for some wide/flat curtain tracks, and some 2×2 roughcut wood from the sawmill.

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16 CURTAIN TRACKS, AND A PILE OF 2×2

 

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We then sandwiched together 2 curtain tracks and 2 pieces of 8mm building steel normally used in reinforced concrete. We had some left over from the house build.

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MAKING ‘SANDWICHES’ OF CURTAIN TRACKS & BUILDING STEEL RODS

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Making the first 2 ‘loops’ was a laugh as each section was 6m (19′) long, but once we had a few more pieces to the puzzle, it stood up on it’s own.

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ALMOST THERE

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STRUCTURAL FRAME COMPLETE

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Then it was a matter of covering the frame with 36 month greenhouse polythene. As the next town is very much a commercial greenhouse area, the suppliers have huge rolls which enabled us to buy a single piece 7m x 9m (23′ x 30′)

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ALL SORTED !

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We use it for various crops, but mostly it’s peas in the winter, simply as the birds destroy the flowers outdoors, so protected in there we get a better crop, then cherry toms, cucumber, lettuce… whatever takes our fancy.

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SNAP PEAS AND ROUND PEAS GROWING WELL

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ONE YEAR IT HAD AUBERGINES AND CUCUMBERS

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PEPPERS

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This link will take you to more of Uncle Spikes ‘Builder’ type adventures.

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