Build a Homemade Solar Greenhouse From a Recycled Tin Shed

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PHOTO: DAVID B. ERICKSON
The windowbox planter that started it all. This greenhouse produces flowers and vegetables right through the long winter. In warmer months, the skylight opens to provide ventilation.

To make an attractive, efficient solar greenhouse for producing food year-round, simply create a homemade solar greenhouse from a recycled tin shed.

My wife, Terri, and I–enthusiastic gardeners both–had long dreamed of building a solar greenhouse that would enable us to garden right through Illinois’s long winter months. Unfortunately, our limited budget kept that dream just a dream . . . until we stumbled on a low-cost way to overcome our budget crunch and grow fresh vegetables, herbs, and flowers year-round: We converted one of those ubiquitous prefabricated metal storage sheds into a compact but highly productive solar greenhouse.

Inspiration for the Recycled Solar Greenhouse

The seed of inspiration that would eventually grow to become our greenhouse took root the day I constructed a window-box planter from 2 by 2 redwood strips and 1/4 inch-thick polycarbonate sheeting. Mounted on the outside of a south-facing, double-hung window, this mini-greenhouse added heat to the interior of our home on sunny winter days, while the plants growing in the box were in turn warmed by the house at night.

It was a grand arrangement. But we eventually moved to a house in which none of the windows were the right size to accept the box. Consequently, the window planter became a decoration (Terri had a different word for it) in our new backyard. Then one day a friend gave us a 10 foot by 9 foot metal storage shed–spanking new, unassembled, and still in its crate. As we were trying to decide where in the backyard to erect the shed, I noticed the old window box lying fallow nearby, put one and one together, and conceived the idea of converting the storage shed into a solar greenhouse.

  • Published on Nov 1, 1985
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