A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

cheap "walk-in" greenhouses

I recently bought a walk in greenhouse for $99.99 at a local supermarket with a large garden center. It has a thin PVC cover. It was a total impulse buy. Anyways I was thinking of putting a barrel or stock tank on the bottom with multi tiered grow beds/DWC. After the end of the season I was going to put polycorbonate panells on it for actual warmth in the winter. So, I'm not sure whether this will work; I'm in zone 8b with minimal sun in the winter. Thank you in advance!

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Permalink Reply by Rick Stillwagon on March 11, 2012 at 8:45pm

Any greenhouse will work, it is how much you want to spend heating it.....

Permalink Reply by Eric Warwick on March 11, 2012 at 8:59pm

Would it work if I don't really want to heat a whole lot?

Rick Stillwagon said:

Any greenhouse will work, it is how much you want to spend heating it.....

Permalink Reply by Rick Stillwagon on March 11, 2012 at 9:03pm

This spring and summer it will work great. This next winter if you heat the water enough to keep your fish alive, (I recommend a cold water species) and heat the root zones of your plants (cold weather crops) you will get through. The warmer it is the more productive it will be.

Permalink Reply by Elizabeth on March 12, 2012 at 3:45am

HI, I have something that is probably similar. It is made from hollow metal bars that are held together with plastic connectors. The connectors use friction and the bars are some kind of rolled metal. This structure forms both the shelves of the greenhouse and the basic frame that holds up the plastic. This is my third one, and at 5' x 7' enables me to walk into it. The first two were smaller. Mine have all held up pretty well to trays of seedlings in potting soil, but you might want to consider the weight of your raised aquaponics beds. At 8.3 lb/gal, a fifty gallon fish tank, which is small by aquaponics standards, holds over 400 lbs of water. If your beds hold the same amount of water, plus rocks, you will be putting a lot of weight on the shelves. I know that none of the low-end plastic greenhouses that I have would support enough weight to do very much aquaponics. The plastic connectors would just break and the whole thing would collapse.

Permalink Reply by DANIEL GRESL on March 12, 2012 at 11:32am

Hi I've sen similar for about $79 on sale, looks good but I built a cheaper larger on using pvc pipes and 6 mil plastic for less than 25

I also built a 12 geodesic dome greenhouse for about $75 , and yesterday while outside temps were about 55 it was 90 in there.

You can do it on a budget if you have the skills

Permalink Reply by Eric Warwick on March 12, 2012 at 5:44pm

Yeah, I just don't know where to get the supplies.
DANIEL GRESL said:

Hi I've sen similar for about $79 on sale, looks good but I built a cheaper larger on using pvc pipes and 6 mil plastic for less than 25

I also built a 12 geodesic dome greenhouse for about $75 , and yesterday while outside temps were about 55 it was 90 in there.

You can do it on a budget if you have the skills

Permalink Reply by DANIEL GRESL on March 12, 2012 at 8:21pm

Menards or Lowes or home depot have the pvc pipes and plastic.

I am currently building a 40' bio dome, frame and covering for about $1000, and that is 1200 sqft of growing space on the ground, I will be doubling that by 2 tiering my grow beds.

But you can do it cheaply with the pvc, if you need the site which shows how to do it I can get it for you.

Eric Warwick said:

Yeah, I just don't know where to get the supplies.
DANIEL GRESL said:

Hi I've sen similar for about $79 on sale, looks good but I built a cheaper larger on using pvc pipes and 6 mil plastic for less than 25

I also built a 12 geodesic dome greenhouse for about $75 , and yesterday while outside temps were about 55 it was 90 in there.

You can do it on a budget if you have the skills

Permalink Reply by Eric Warwick on March 12, 2012 at 8:27pm

No, it's pretty self explanitory.
DANIEL GRESL said:

But you can do it cheaply with the pvc, if you need the site which shows how to do it I can get it for you.

Permalink Reply by Teresa N Florida on March 12, 2012 at 9:27pm

@Daniel, Go ahead and post it so others my look for themselves . What are you using as a covering for the new dome?

Permalink Reply by DANIEL GRESL on March 12, 2012 at 9:40pm

I am using 12 mil solar pool covering clear diamond bubble with the bubble facing in. It is cheaper than insulating greenhouse film and has 5 yr plus uv rating and boy does it work well, much better than using greenhouse plastic.I'll post link on pvc greenhouse after I find it in all my bookmarks.