Double Decker Greenhouse Garden

Great garden in a small space for a short season.

Recycle an old swing set into a green house.  Put a shelf across the middle of the swing set to add garden space, or simply hang upside down pots or planters from the existing swing set hooks.  Add a climbing wire for beans.  Then, set up your watering system, plant, cover with plastic and watch your garden grow.  This double decker greenhouse is sure to add a couple of weeks growing time on each end of the growing season.  That's a precious month for a zone 4 gardner. 

Step 1 Prepare the Plot

My awesome Mother help me dig down 8 to 10" with a pick and shovel and then removed half of loosened hard sand and clay.  Next, we mixed in some really excellent dirt from a worm farmer which was one-third worm castings, one-third manure and one-third top soil.  I paid $40 for 1.5 yards; this project took 1 yard.  The worm farmer said more than one-third worm castings will produce great foliage but no flowers.  This is a picture of my Mother and the Earth Angels blessing my new garden spot.  

The swing set I salvaged from a metal pile at the dump had a foot print of 5.5' x 10.5', plus we added an extra 4' of garden to one end, since I had the space.

Comments

[2 stroke]

ill weld a middle leg in on the support that is supporting the weight just use some galvenized pipe and weld it to the support that is holding everthing

[1-2BGardening]

Cool idea. Kudos to you for putting it all together. What plants were most successful with this? I'd like to see a picture showing full grown plants. It seems like the gutters are too shallow for most plants.

[ideatrunk]

You are right, the gutters are too shallow for plants. Spring mix lettuce and spinach grew but were half the normal size in the gutters. Bonsai spinach.

[ideatrunk]

Shallow root vegetables, mainly lettuce and spinach in the gutters. Nice height for easy picking. The gutters are tending to dry out in hot weather, so AmyLuthien's comment below regarding gutter hydroponics is a good one. The recycled salad trays worked great for really health squash plant starts but will run into the same drying out problem come July. Possible solutions could include a soaker hose on a timer, or switching to hanging planters.

[1-2BGardening]

I'd plant pole beans or morning glories on the poles. I see you are in zone 4. I'm in zone 14 according to Sunset magazine. I have a hard time growing things in large hanging baskets because they get too hot even if they don't dry out.

[ideatrunk]

Thanks for sharing your ideas. The swing set would make a nice trellis for climbing plants!

[georion]

Thanks --Im going to use your idea and expand it by screwing boards lenghtwise to the swing legs and placing 3 or 4 platforms depthwise--really dont believe i didnt think of it untill i saw your Instructable --Thanks again !!!!!!!!!! Wow!!!

[bruc33ef]

Great use for an old swing set!

[ideatrunk]

Thanks. The wind is tending to suck the plastic sides inward, guy wires from the top bar to a stake in the ground would help. Or, make the greenhouse bigger with two swing sets side by side.

[AmyLuthien]

Now that's thinking with your noodle!  Great idea!  You could even go 'fancy' with something like this and make it into a hydroponics set up, put the gutters at slight angles so the top one drained into the one below it , , , 

Now I've got to go find an old swing set!  Thanks!

[ideatrunk]

The gutters would be ideal for hydroponics. Good idea!