My backyard greenhouse plan

[Roger R.]

My wife and I had been planning to move to a place with more land, and possibilities, but after an unexpected career change it looks like we'll be staying here for a while. We like living in this community but they have some very tight restrictions about what you can build in your back yard. My square footage allowed is only a small percentage of the lot size and our lot is small, I can only build 138 sq.ft.

My plan is to build a 7'-8"x18' greenhouse to house an aquaponics system. The North roof, side and half of each end will be insulated and the rest will be covered in 8mm, triple wall, polycarbonate. It will have a 6/12 roof pitch with some type of operable ridge vent, still working on that design. The 6" side overhang soffit will operable for ventilation and it will have some type of operable door at the base just above the outside raised bed.

I still like dirt gardening so I plan to have a 2' wide raised bed across the South side with three 4'x8' raised beds coming out to the South. Here's a drawing.



The inside will have a single IBC fish tank, a sump tank under the front grow beds and a couple of barrel fiters. The grow bed on the North side will set on a row of plastic water barrels for winter heat gain. Those barrels are not tied into the aquaponics system. The North growbed is 2'x14' and divided into two sections. The South growbed is about 2'-10"x14' and is set lower. All the barrels will be black.
My plan is to have a sump tank close to the same size as the fish tank. The fish tank will be a constant height and the system will have two pumps. One pump will continuously circulate from the sump, through the fish tank, filters and back to the sump. The second pump will be for a timed flood and drain to the growbeds, pumped from the sump and will drain back to the sump. That's why the sump will be about the same size as the fish tank. I'm thinking about raising hybrid bluegill in the IBC tank and may be throw a couple of catfish in the sump

Here's an interior look without the roof and polycarbonate. I'm not good enough with Sketchup yet to add in all the framing but I'm planning to have a rigid wood frame every 6' and purlins.




All the material from cleaning the filters will be used to fertilize the dirt garden.
I will plant sweet corn, sunflowers and other tall plants in the first outside bed to help shade the green house through the summer but I will probably have to use some shade cloth as well.

Anyway I hope to get this built before the cold weather next fall and get the aquaponics underway. My little indoor system is going great and I can't wait to try it on a larger scale.

Any questions and suggestions are welcome.

[Basil1]

Very cool, look forward to seeing updates as you progress.

[Roger R.]

I was cruising through our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore this afternoon and they had four 3' wide patio doors with insulated glass, no frames just the door panels. They were $20 each. They said they get those kind of things in all the time so I may have to redesign a little and use something like that for the sidewall instead of the polycarbonate panels.

[Roger R.]

Well the greenhouse plan is on hold for this year. I have recently started my own construction company so that is a lot of time and resources, and it has become even more apparent that our property is too small.
I am building a small growbed to be fed by our little backyard pond. Should have that up and running this weekend! I'll post a few pics later.

[Roger R.]

I finally have my grow bed in the back yard up and running. It's 3'x7' built from recycled material, old deck boards and other salvaged materials.
I have a 1/6 hp sump pump on a cheap timer that runs for 1/2 hour and is off for 1 1/2 hours. It's on a $5 indoor light timer from the local hardware store. It fit inside the weather proof fixture that I already in place for the pond pump.
The return hose is a 1 1/4" central vac hose that I've had sitting around for years, don't have a central vac system, and it's fed with a garden hose.
The media is mostly lava rock then topped with river rock.
I have one tomato plant, rainbow chard, bush cucumbers, green beans and a few zinnias planted. The beans and cucumbers have popped up since the pictures were taken. The tomato plant was started in my indoor system then moved out here.
The pond is shallow and I'm estimating about 280 gallons. I moved 8 goldfish from the indoor system back out here, they seem to be doing good.
The next thing is to make it look pretty, for my wife.

I think the greenhouse is out, at least for this property, so I would like to build a series of grow beds across the back fence with a fish tank on the high end. Then I need to work in the existing pond to make it work better as a sump. Maybe next year.





The media guard is a plastic jar that held whey protein from my sons football days. It worked great cause it's sturdy enough and has a screw on lid.





There's a 1/4" hole at the base of the stand pipe for the water to drain after the pump stops.



The fish hide under the flat rock so the herons don't snack on them. It does bring the water level down in the pond but not as bad after the media went in.

[davidstcldfl]

[Roger R.]

Just took these pics a few minutes ago. It's warm and humid today with a little rain. I think my camera lens fogged up.

[davidstcldfl]

It's always nice to see stuff comming up...

Keep an eye on the roots of that tomato. They get ''HUGE" and they'll be heading for that drain all too soon...
I've had to remove lots of them...

Keep the pictures comming....

[eddiemigue]

Looks great, especially for something made from repurposed materials. Nicely done!

[15mules]

Sometimes we have to readjust our thinking to fit our situation as it changes. I certainly think you have a nice little system going, even if it is not what your plan started with. The important think is YOU STARTED. What was that I once heard "If you want to see God laugh, just tell him your plans for the future". Better to have lots of construction work keeping you from your back yard, rather than have lots of time and no resources to do anything. Thanks for the pictures, I like pictures!!