Build a SeedHouse/MiniGreenhouse!

Make a small green house for starting seeds earlier to extend the growing season!
The window will help trap heat inside the box so that it will warm up and you can plant seeds a little earlier. Basically, it works like a mini-green house.

Step 1

I built this using an old window and some scrap wood that was going to be thrown out. The most important thing to have is the window or a piece of acrylic, you can pretty much build it around this then.

Comments

[rosewood513]

I have been wanting to make one of these, or two, a friend gave me some new windows that should last many years.
Thanks for the great video

[flynnguy]

Good build but it's not really a greenhouse, it's more of a coldbox or coldframe. Also a few other tips... While someone might be tempted to use pressure treated wood because of the ground contact, I'd recommend against it because the chemicals from the pressure treatment process could leach into your soil and plants. Finally, be sure to keep an eye on your plants and vent the coldframe when it's warmer out so you don't burn your plants. To vent it, just get a block of wood to hold open the window.

[serpensphile]

According to Stan Lebow, a wood scientist at the USDA’s Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, “The potential for any CCA chemicals getting into groundwater from garden use is pretty much zero. They just don’t move that far.”

But.....Rufus Chaney at the USDA agrees with Bourquin about food safety. “There’s no evidence that food safety is impaired by growing vegetables around CCA-treated wood.” According to Chaney, high levels of inorganic arsenic in soil will kill a plant before there’s enough arsenic in the plant itself for you to consider not eating it. Far more important is the risk of potential transfer of arsenic to skin and mouths, particularly for children, whose small bodies don’t tolerate arsenic as well as ours do. Chaney points out that persistent leaching, however small, means that arsenic is continually coming to the surface of the wood, where it can easily be transferred to us or our children when we touch the wood. “There’s just no way around it,” Chaney says. “For me, this is the overriding reason not to use CCA.”

http://www.finegardening.com/design/articles/pressure-treated-wood-in-beds.aspx

[RoBear613]

If you are growing in pots, pressure treated will not pose any threat to vegetable plants.

[urbangardens]

Nice idea! I'd only be a little concerned that it has to be placed against a fence or wall so the lid would rest against it and not need to be held up with one hand or risk falling on your head. I wonder if there's a kind of hinge that would prevent it from falling and would keep it upright? And maybe, for those who would not want it to damage the grass below, it could be placed on small risers on each of the four corners to raise it up. good job!

[RoBear613]

Yes. Google "greenhouse vent opener". Inexpensive/manual about $20. Automatic about $45 and up.

[jeff-o]

I think white on the inside is a better idea than a dark colour. You want the paint to bounce the full spectrum of light onto the plants inside, rather than absorbing it.

[PatFar]

UVA and UVB don't go through glass anyway - why you don't get a sunburn in the house - so you won't get full spectrum through the glass - only when the thing is opened up during the warm days

[jeff-o]

Glass will block most of the UVB rays, but will pass UVA. It acts like sunscreen. So you'll get a tan, but slowly. It would indeed take a long time before you got burnt.

[maurice1993]

this look like a passage to a subterrain chamber... LoL great thing, but here I don't have space, either material and tools to do that.(I live in a rent farm...;( (got to have my own space....)

[drewSaysGoVeg]

Looks great! I might just build one

[wch]

looks like you have a real nice cold frame and you did a real good job,now if you want a mini green house then add a small vent,a minifan,and you will have a hot house or as some of us call them a plant cooker.

[Bug2k]

I'd guess the window frame will collect rainwater and rot\damage the frame eventually. Any idea that drilling drain holes would help?

[conceptualstratagem]

Nice work, looks like it keeps the vermin out.

[AubreeMarie]

You may consider painting the inside if not the whole thing a dark color togarner more heat from the sun (white reflects light, black absorbs, etc). it looks great though, very professional/mass market looking, only its not so its betterb ;)

[jeff-o]

One side benefit is that it would keep (non-burrowing) animals out, too!

[AndyGadget]

Have you been looking over my hedge?? That cold frame (that's what we call them in the UK) looks exactly like one I made a few years ago (apart from the colour ;¬) I've added an adjustable prop to mine, so I can keep the lid slightly open to help with air-flow. If it gets too damp in there your seedlings can die from 'damping off'.