Building a permanent greenhouse with cattle panels - part 1

The greenhouse today - still a lot to do

Last year I decided I wanted to build a small greenhouse.  I wanted to have a place to start seedlings and be able to pot things in the spring out of the weather and then let them grow on till weather allowed them to go outside.   Since then I've also done a lot of reading about 4 season growing and decided I would like to incorporate an area in the greenhouse to do that too.   I wanted to do it as inexpensively as possible so decided cattle panels would be the way to go.   For anyone that doesn't know what they are, a cattle panel is fencing for livestock you can purchase in sections at Tractor Supply or a feed store.  It's comes in 16' lengths 52" tall.  They run about $20 each.  It's rigid and can be arched to make a structure 8' wide and any length depending on how many you use. I wanted it 8' x 12'.

Last summer I started the base.  It was hard for me to figure out because it was going to be located on a slope and I wanted a dirt floor without having to do ground work to level the area.    I also wanted to make the back end of it to be a place I could put the chickens for the winter so I lined the floor with hardware cloth so it would be predator proof.  

This was what I got done last year.

I added 3 cattle panels

To get the cattle panels on,  I start by clamping a 1" x 4"  board to the base.  I drilled pilot holes along the bottom of the board and then added 2" hex screws.  

I left the hex screws out about a 1/2" to 3/4" so  there was a gap between the base and the board so I could then slide the end of the cattle panel into the space.  The screws kept it from going all the way through to the ground.   When I got all three panels into the boards on both sides I added some  hex screws above so the cattle panels can't be raised.

Then I tightened them all using a socket wrench which makes it fairly fast compared to using a regular wrench.

The cattle panels were older and not as rigid as new ones are so they ended up leaning some.   I cut out a door way and then added a brace to straighten it out till I got permanent bracing in.  Then I added a doorway in front and in the back.

I added the tarp to keep my tools dry in case of rain while I am working on it. When both the front and back doorways are in I can add the bracing to the top by adding 2 - 12'  2 x 4's to the top of the doorways to make it strong enough to handle a snow load.  Right now the back door is only clamped. 

I did the back doorway differently.  You can also see a bit of the hardware cloth that is lining the bottom of the greenhouse.

Hope to get time later this week to finish the front and back but the pigs have been escaping daily so need to redo their situation first.  

Elizabeth

Other post about building with cattle panels

Cattle panel Greenhouses, Barns and Snow Load

Building a Cattle Panel Barn