DIY PVC GREENHOUSE

hey there this video is all about my high tunnel how I built it but I'm also going to talk to you about if you should build your own or buy a kit and some other good tips about having a high tunnel door greenhouse hi I'm Josh and I run satin Hill farm and there's a lot of new subscribers to the channel so welcome thank you so much for following along I'm really glad to connect with you guys and hopefully you're gaining a lot of useful information to help you guys grow better food if you're just doing this on a home setting level or if you're doing this on a commercial farm so I just want to share to you today about the greenhouse Tiffani it's a high tunnel it's not heated there's it's totally passive there's no power on it or anything this is a very requested video and I'm more than happy to share with you guys but before I get into it I want to make a couple of points here now when I built this tunnel last year it was before my first season and I'm I'm a very DIY guy I want to try to save as much money as possible but in retrospect I should have bought a kit for this and this is not a sponsored video in any way but I would totally buy a kit from farmers friend if you up towards the range of 50 or larger for 50 feet or larger for a tunnel just buy a kit this this one here is not mobile and you guys know I love portable stuff I spent a lot of time on this I really didn't save that much money so in retrospect I would have done that now I know a lot of you guys are interested in how I put the Sailor so I definitely want to talk about that and I also want to just show you a couple little things that might help you set up your tunnel or help you make some decisions about that alright so get it some of the specifics here and how to put this together first so this tunnel is 12 feet wide by 48 feet long and there was a couple reasons for that my bed's are 50 feet long I just could not get like a 54 56 foot tunnel in here just with the space constraint that I had I was I put this in in a spot where I just I wanted to you make sure I could still get around the tunnel and just sort of for it fit so my beds are a little bit shorter in here so these are a 48 foot tunnel I have 44 foot bed so I only have two feet on either end which is a bit which is very tight the hoops here are made out of electrical Kondo the PVC kind so you can get PVC in white which is what you normally see and then you can also get an electrical aisle and it's this gray stuff and supposedly it's a little bit more UV resistant so that's what I went with these this the hoops are 20 feet so there's two 10-foot sections and they're glued together in the middle and they sit inside some larger diameter pipe that goes in the ground this is one and a half inch PVC and the pieces that are in the ground that the hoops fit into our two-inch and I don't remember the length of those but I I forgot maybe two and a half or three feet and I drove them in the ground a little bit and I'll show you that too now the other option for making tunnels is using top rail which is a galvanized metal and they last forever but you do need a some sort of bender for that and at the time I just was being cheap and I didn't want to buy pay for the bender so I used conduit now the one thing about using PVC is that the PVC will react with the polyethylene the greenhouse plastic and so what you have to do is either cover it with tape or you can paint it I've heard of people painted I just use duct tape so I had to after I built the hoops cover the entire top part of the surface with duct tape so that it wouldn't react with the polyethylene I guess it burns it so you don't want to make me wanna make sure that happens this greenhouse plastic is the standard six mil greenhouse plastic it's supposed to last four years and so far it's it's been holding up pretty well so symptom design considerations that I had about the greenhouse that I wanted to put together at the time I thought it was important to have actual doors which now I could care less about the reality for me is that I'm using this tunnel for green product Green's production at season extension overwintering so I have greens in here from you know like October through March and then in the summer I'm doing tomatoes and maybe some other warm weather supper right now it's just full of tomato so for your contacts with your climate you have to consider you know what you're going to be using the tunnel for and so that's what I'm doing I'm doing greens in the shoulder seasons and over winter and then we're going to be doing tomatoes and maybe some eggplants in here later in the summer so you got to keep in mind what you want to use your tunnel for now I don't have a lot of height in this tunnel and that is something that really bothers me now and I had no problem walking through here but I'll show you inside you'll see the tomatoes are just like up to the top now there's a way you can raise this up when you build it is those pieces on the side where the hoops pop into you could just make those pieces of PVC taller so that it gets raised I actually wanted to do that but the problem was once I did that I couldn't see my back porch is over here and I couldn't see over the tunnel for my back porch and I just decided I didn't want to look at plastic when I look on my back porch so there's context everything guys that would not have been a big expense but you know it would have made a lot of improvement now raising the tunnel up is great if you can if you want to do that because then the beds on the sides they will have a lot more height and it's easier to work with tools and if you're trellising stuff they'll have more height there too so on the end wall here you know a lot of this is just figure out as you go I didn't really have plans for this this is just built out of a bunch of wood and in sort of slop together so let me show you some other stuff that's going on here in in detail alright so the base that goes around the whole thing is made out of two by six pressure treated lumber and I did a lot of research about pressure treated and some people are against using it so you can make your decision about that I'm not going to get into that discussion here but I just didn't want to worry about it so much and so there are long pieces and then they just get sistered together like this I used another piece of wood here and everything is screwed together to hold those pieces together down the length of it you can see them all the way down there now the let me show you the the posts here so this is the the 2-inch PVC and this is the one and a half inch PVC that the hoops are made out of and so I just have a bolt going through here with a washer and a nut and then at the bottom I have a carriage bolt that goes through the wood and then goes through and there's a nut and washer on the inside as well and that pretty much holds the hoops and the baseboards together I just have tape around this because I was concerned about though I have roll up sides here and I was kind of concerned about it hitting this little edge here and ripping so I just have that little bit taped up so again this is a real DIY job and I just I'm gonna share it with you guys all right now inside the tunnel so we got our hoops and let me show you how they go together so you hopefully gets you up here this is where the 210-foot pieces glued together and then I have a ridge Pole across the top and again that's the same one-and-a-half inch conduit it's hard to see this well tomato's gone in here and then I just have a bolt coming from the top down there's a washer not here and you want to make sure that you do it this way because you want the top of it to be smooth so that the plastic isn't rubbing against that right there all right but as you can see in here guys I have just getting crazy tomato production here just an awesome way to grow tomatoes and so you know one of the big things about my context here is it's not so much the you know getting an early start in the season that sort of thing we're in Raleigh North Carolina zone 7b it's pretty warm and nice here a lot of the year but the bigger issue for us is rain we get so much rain in the in the fall and winter especially like with hurricane season and just all winter when we do get a little bit of snow here too but then a lot of the times it's just great to keep the rain off of things all right another thing I want to show you here is I put in what's called I think they're called hip boards along the sides here and that just gives a lot of stability and also gives me a place to mount the plastic because I have roll-up sides this is one buy for lumber I believe and again the longer they're just long pieces and then their sister together you can see that here and just like the bottom I have a bulk going through the outside and then a knot in a washer on the inside so let me show you how the plastic attaches to this so we got here we got the one by four on the inside and then these are one by twos and so what I did was that the plastic comes down this way and this top one is just screwed flush with the top of that 1 by 4 so you pull the plastic over tight with on top of this 1 by 2 and then as you're you know pulling it tight here you need you need a friend to help you with this you put this 1 by 2 in and that what's holds it in now if you just screw in the only place that's really holding it or just where the screws are so by doing it this way you get a nice tight edge here and the tension is pretty even and that way you know the plastic being held on by this whole one bite this whole one by two and not just a couple of screws or staples or whatever a couple other things about the plastic here this one piece of plastic that does the most of the the top that it does rap over here and that's tight in here with the same sort of system with the 1 by 4 on one by twos also tied in here we left it a little bit long over here it's a little bit of overlap and it was cut and then this bottom piece is a separate piece it goes around this way to the bottom and right here as well I don't know if I just what seemed to work now whenever you pull plastic over the end wells if you don't attach them you could also use wiggle wire which is super cool again I was being cheap when I when I built this so I didn't buy any I was trying to avoid buying some there'll be some ripples and these are stretched out a little bit they were a lot tighter when I did this but make sure when you do these like sort of creases or ripples that you do it so it's facing downwards because if you did the other way they would just hold water so just you know keep that in mind for sure and then the door let me show you the door over here the door is very similar these are two by threes that make up the door frame and same idea with the plastic on the inside they're just these I actually didn't use two 1 by 2's I just put in one by twos and screw them in it was just a small piece I figure if the plastic gets ruined it's pretty easy to replace it and then just threw a latch on here too and pretty pretty straightforward construction this these are just tied in here with some straps that go over the top and these pieces here these 1 by fours are just screwed in here and there's a little bit of a support here to hold the plastic on the inside I don't know I literally was just like figuring this out as I went along I think there's not a lot of information about n wall construction from what I could find online a lot of people talk about how to build you know hoops and and stuff like that and while it's like oh man just figure it out so that's that's what I did but hopefully this gives you an idea it's gonna have to be a little bit resourceful and creative and you know kind of figure things out if you want to go to this route let's talk ventilation and roll up sides I did put roll up sides on here and I do really like this feature with some of the other tunnels on the market it's pretty simple you can raise and lower the size of the plastic pretty easily but this I do like the roll-up sides and it was part of my design here so the way this works is this is 3/4 inch electrical conduit and I think there's five ten-foot pieces and there's couplings that hold the pieces together and then over here I have a 90 degree fitting and then this is like a sweep that you can buy pre-bent and the way this works is the plastic has just rolled up on the conduit and then as you turn the handle it just rolls it up and then I have a rope here that you just we tie a knot and it just keeps the handle from from moving and the way that the conduit is attached to the plastic on the side I use these clips here and I think I got these from Johnny's I'll find a link and I'll post for you guys they've been working okay they do fall off on occasion but that way you don't have to screw anything in or anything like that the other thing about ventilation is the doors on the sides open and what gets really hot I make sure I open everything for me here my context I actually wouldn't even have walls on the ends of mine during the summer it's so hot here I mean most of summer it's over 90 degrees here and so maximum ventilation is key and so ya keep all these things in mind when you when you design your tunnel if you're curious about the trellising set up I did a whole video about trellising I'll put a link right there to you so you can check that out in terms of sourcing materials for this project pretty much everything I got from Lowe's or Home Depot and the only thing I think I wondered where those clips which I showed you and then the greenhouse plastic make sure you use greenhouse plastic don't use stuff you get at Home Depot or Lowe's that stuff's not UV resistant so I think I ordered this plastic from farmers friend but I've also ordered some greenhouse plastic from bootstrap farmer for my low tunnels both were great so those are two sources for you guys to check out I think I bought a 28 foot wide roll for this tunnel so that gave me 20 feet for the hoops and then a few extra feet on the sides and don't get it exactly because you won't have enough extra in terms of width but also in length you need to do the end walls and stuff like that too I feel like I'll get some questions about what's going on here sometimes I'll just tell you I had tomatoes in here they're on 12 inch spacing these two rows are 18 inches apart on the outside they're also 12 inch spacing and I have some basil and they're planted on the outside and they seem to be doing okay and so that's what's going on in here and a lot of people ask me about lower and lean I'm not doing that this year I might consider that next year but this tunnels really tight I'm just going to grow them up and get the fruit off of them I can and I'm probably gonna do a second succession later in the summer and into the fall so let's talk layout inside the tunnel now I said it's a 12 foot wide tunnel so we can do some quick calculations here I originally had four beds in here and to do that I had I think there were 27 inch beds and 12 inch walkways just to try to squeeze four beds in here and you know I'm trying to get the most productions possible out here but it was just miserable in here last year especially with with trellis and crop so I changed my layout here after I pulled out the tomatoes last summer and so what I have in here now are two 30-inch beds on the sides I have 18-inch walkways and the middle beds actually forty inches and you guys know I like to standardize my stuff and so all the field blocks and the field beds outside are all you know they're all 30 inch by 50 foot beds but in here it's just they're just odd balls it's okay I just work with it so the 30 inch beds are great because it's standard for me the 40 inch bed was kinda saying but for me it actually works out well because when I'm doing greens in here in the winter you know for lettuce I usually put 4 rows on about I just put 5 on a bed and I just got little more production so that was cool and then the idea behind that also was that the middle bed here I'm just doing two rows of tomatoes together and that kept the tallest crops in the middle so I could try to keep a pathway in here it's really tight in here when the tomatoes get big and I don't know I'm trying to keep on top of the pruning this year but you know it is a lot of work so I will you know I need to do a little bit more pruning working here but that's the lay on here now if you're curious about the irrigation setup in here please check out my irrigation video I'll leave a link right there so you can check that out but other than that yeah things have been working out great in here it's a nice little tunnel you also want to keep in mind that a cost and time I mean as I said before the farmers friend tunnel I've seen so many other mark gardeners use them and they're really inexpensive and you can put them together in a couple hours and you can move them so that I can't move this this is just this is here and that that's just a reality so keep all that in mind I think if you know if I was building a small tunnel maybe for a nursery or something like that where maybe was 20 feet or maybe yours you know you just want to build a really small one on your property to comply put this together maybe you know without some of the other options on here for a little bit cheaper maybe this is a good option you but you know I just want to shares with you I know a lot of you guys were you know asking to see that my tunnel and all the details and so here you go I I'm more than happy to share this information with you guys yeah any other ideas on videos please let me know in the comments below or hit me up with a message on Instagram if you haven't checked out my Instagram page I post every day on there so if you want to see more about what's going on the farm check that out too anyways guys thank you so much for watching I'm just trying to get some more information out to you guys and help you with your growing and again thanks for watching so please like the video share with your friends subscribe to the channel it's all very helpful to get this information out to as many people as possible and we'll see you in the next one

Channel: Josh Sattin Farming

Views: 555,310

Keywords: farming, farming for profit, farming business, micro farming, urban farming, urban micro farming, urban farmer, regenerative farming, regenerative agriculture, sustainable farming, sustainable agriculture, no till farming, no till garden, no-till gardening, no-till farming, organic farming, organic vegetable gardening, market gardening, market gardening for profit, suburban farming, suburban farmer, permaculture, homestead, homesteading

Id: Eg-A8_L2N30

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2019