Can A PVC Pipe Greenhouse Survive A Canadian Winter?
It’s December 12 in Central Alberta. Last week brought a lovely little blizzard with high winds and a whole pile of snow and this weekend we are looking forward to -35°C. Yup, must be winter. So, I figured it would be a great time to check on my little greenhouse. You know the one – the hoopframe greenhouse I made out of PVC pipes and covered with woven poly. Some people weren’t sure it would stand up the the wind and the snow and the cold temperatures, but I was confident. Mostly. So I ventured out in the -29.9°C weather this morning to see how well things were standing up. Here’s what it looked like:
Not bad so far. How about the inside? One of the biggest concerns is that the pvc pipes would snap or would bend under the weight of the snow. One nice thing is that Alberta snow tends to be pretty dry, so it’s not usually as heavy as the snow in other parts of the country. Regardless, it can still be pretty heavy when piled up. Well, here’s the inside.
Things are holding up well. Nothing has snapped, there is no major bending going on – all is bright and well. And, for an added bonus (for what it’s worth), it was -18.7°C inside while -29.9°C outside. Still really cold – but certainly a wide spread (and this only at 10am – by 2pm it should be significantly warmer from the sun).
So I must say I am pleased. I think this greenhouse is my best to date and I am excited to get some plants started out there earlier than I ever have before! I’ll keep you updated!
Update at 1:00pm later that day:
Ok, now it’s just -27°C outside, but a scorching -10°C inside! That’s 17 degrees people! Does that not impress you? I does me. I’ll have tomatoes in February!… Well, that might be a little wishful thinking…
December 12th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
winter was a major concern when i was considering building this earlier in the year. this post definitely inspires me to try it next season.
December 15th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Now it’s for sure I’m building one next spring!
December 16th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
have you seen this book? the author uses double layers of this kind of structure (so another greenhouse/row cover inside the greenhouse, basically..) to create huge differences in temp and extend the season. amazing. I can’t wait to try this next year.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=QMHdDgkRjDkC&lpg=PP1&dq=four%20season%20harvest&client=firefox-a&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
December 20th, 2009 at 4:50 am
Love your greenhouse. Wish we had space for one like this here or that they’d let us build one on our little orchard.
The book Four Season Harvest that Claire mentions is great. I think you’d find lots of inspiration in there about growing year round. I certainly did. Now just need to get a roof on our greenhouse again. Doh!
BTW, I thought it was cold here in Germany at -13°C. I can barely fathom -35. Brrr!
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:06 am
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April 13th, 2010 at 2:17 am
Dammit!
I just typed a whole long message, but when I tried to submit it my FireFox hung.
Did it come though or do I need to redo it?
June 1st, 2010 at 2:37 pm
We live in NW Montana, 60 miles from the Canadian Border at 4200 feet. Gardening in April/May would be impossible without our hoop house which we built last year. It is 11′x42′. We just used 6mil poly and it worked great. By then end of the season it smelled dank and we had some slugs on the squash. The tomatoes still didn’t ripen, they often needed double cover. Our summer day and night temps can vary up to 50 degrees (30-80) so we are dealing with severity here. Our salad garden is being picked now, end of May and we are thinking of keeping this hoop house up thru June in order to protect those plants (greens, lettuces and cabbages) because we inevitably get a winter storm of snow or hail sometime in June which devasts the garden. Planting this weekend in the garden (June 5th) and creating another (same size) hoop down the other end of garden, this time with clear green house plastic (6mil) which we will keep up all summer on that bed which will house our eggplants, tomatoes anc cucumbers and some squash. We plan to keep the hoop up in one area only 1 yr at a time, do crop rotation and air out the earth that had been covered. The clear greenhouse plastic should be a much prettier site this year!
Good luck gardening,everyonel
August 1st, 2010 at 6:26 am
Very interesting post! We are thinking of building one of these and need to know how it will stand up to our winter.
Great site!!