DIY Greenhouse for Building Shelter for Your Plants

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Micro Container Greenhouse

You can use all sorts of plastic food packaging to make micro greenhouses. This micro container greenhouse, for example, demonstrates how you could protect a single plant, or some seedlings using recycled items and keep those items out of landfill. These mini greenhouses, or cloches as they are sometimes known, are one way to create a level of protection and a micro-climate for plants without spending any money at all.

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Mini CD Case Greenhouse

It is not only food packaging that can be reused for this purpose. You can also make mini greenhouses using plastic items from around your home that would otherwise have been thrown away. For example, you could use old plastic storage boxes, bubble-wrap from packaging or the protective film that comes over the screens of new televisions and other electronic devices to make small DIY greenhouses.

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Bubble Umbrella Greenhouse

All sorts of everyday items can be reused in your garden rather than thrown away. One item that is often difficult to recycle at the end of its useful life is the umbrella. But you could also use the frame of an old umbrella to make the structure of a new mini greenhouse and replace the fabric with some clear recycled or reclaimed plastic.

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Recycled Window Hothouse For Small Spaces

Using reclaimed windows is not only for large gardens. This small hothouse design could work just as well for a small patio, or a balcony garden as it would in a larger space.

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Wood Pallet Greenhouse

There are a whole raft of different wooden frames that you can create to support the plastic sheeting on a small-space DIY greenhouse. This plan stands out for its simplicity, its suitability to small spaces, and for the fact that it is made from wood from an old wood pallet. This is one of many garden DIY projects for which old wood pallets could come in handy.

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DIY Folding Greenhouse

A DIY folding greenhouse, that you can fold away neatly when it is not in use, could be just the solution that you are looking for.  The space it occupied could then be used as a seating or recreation area – or something else. In small spaces, every inch should be utilised, and ideally for more than one thing.

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Pipe Tomato Tent

One of the most common ways to make a small polytunnel to cover a growing area or garden bed is to create a structure using PVC pipe. PCV pipe is used in several different larger DIY greenhouses as well. Using reclaimed piping would, of course, make this a far greener and more sustainable choice.

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Recycled Car Port Greenhouse

Using natural materials is one good way to be green. But so is reusing things that might otherwise have been discarded. This DIY greenhouse uses the frame from an old carport to make a relatively large greenhouse structure.

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Barn Shaped Greenhouse

These attractive barn shaped DIY greenhouse plans explain step by step how to make this greenhouse, which could fit in perfectly on a rural property – or bring a feeling of the countryside to a town or city garden.

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Roof Ventilation Greenhouse

One of the downsides to growing inside a tunnel or a more traditional greenhouse is that the space inside can be difficult to ventilate. This DIY greenhouse incorporates a split-level roof, allowing for ventilation flaps or windows to be added at the top. With its excellent ventilation, it could be a good choice for warmer climate gardens.

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DIY Geodome Greenhouse

If you want to try something a little different then why not think outside the box and build a geodome greenhouse. This DIY  does involve more complex joinery, and might not be a good choice for beginners. But if you already have a number of DIY projects under your belt and are looking for a new challenge it could be an interesting option for you.

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Dome Solar Greenhouse

This amazing idea takes the geodesic dome and turns it into something truly special – a solar greenhouse ideally suited to your food growing needs. Again, this is not the most simple of DIY greenhouses, but could be an amazing way to up your game in your sustainable and eco-friendly garden.

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Plastic Bottle Greenhouse

Most of the options described above use sheet plastic – thick or thin, soft or rigid – for the cover or between sections of the frame. But sheet plastic is not your only option. Some gardeners have instead turned to trash for their inspiration. One of the most amazing greenhouse designs out there, this one uses plastic pop bottles to infill a wooden frame.

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Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse

The walipini is basically a sunken, greenhouse-like structure, or earth-sheltered cold frame, that keeps plants warmer by borrowing heat from the ground. The word ‘walipini’ means ‘place of warmth’ in the Aymara language of an indigenous Bolivian tribe. These structures were and are used in Bolivian communities.

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Straw Bale Greenhouse

Earth is not the only thing that can be used to add thermal mass and provide extra insulation and warmth on the northern side of a greenhouse. Straw bales can be used to form part of a greenhouse structure. These are warm, natural, easy to work with and relatively cheap, and so are an excellent choice for sustainable garden DIY builds.

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Recycled Glass-Window DIY Greenhouses

Purchasing new glass or new windows for a greenhouse is often very expensive when compared to the other ideas.  But recycled glass windows – from your home or from a local reclamation yard, can be a wonderful resource and can be used to create a range of different greenhouses.

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