How to Build Eliot Coleman's 13x9' Greenhouse



"Unsustainable Farming Practices Lead to Misery and Ruin©" - Written, performed, and recorded by Mattie J. Bamman, mastered by Andy Getting

We set out to build a 13x9-foot hoophouse using a design from old-school Maine farmer Eliot Coleman. Our step-by-step video covers a few tricky areas of the construction that Coleman’s video didn’t cover, such as how to build the greenhouse door, use garden clips, etc. It also lists all of the necessary materials and goes over our total costs. (Our costs were mitigated because we were able to build most of our greenhouse using “foraged” materials found around our property, which was once a commercial golf range or something…).

I put the effort into building the greenhouse because we live in a hardness zone 5a and 5b here in Midcoast Maine. This means late-spring frosts can be sometimes ruin crops. By building a greenhouse, our seedlings will be better protected and allow us to get a jump on the growing season.

In the end, I think a greenhouse is helpful but not necessary for growing a garden in Midcoast Maine. A greenhouse helps you get more ripe produce from hard-to-ripen varieites like heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, and eggplants, but, if money and time are a factor, you can also avoid these difficulties, as well as the process of setting up and maintaining a greenhouse, by selecting easier-to-ripen fruits and vegetables.

See the original video by Eliot Coleman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovR-OZlul3w&t=880s



Comments

Anonymous said…
good job.

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