Yesterday I did a fair amount of organizing in our garage. The primary goal was to fit my wife’s car in it but I also had an ulterior motive: organizing the garage would make it more usable for all the future projects I have planned. We have a bunch of boxes that are now stacked up as high as the riding lawnmower and nearly as long left over from Christmas. Those need to go! A couple may make a good bedding layer for a planting bed but most of them are unsuitable since they have glossy surfaces. We’ll take those to the recycling bin at the dump.
Some Assembly Required, but not much!
During the clean-up and organization process I put together the mini-greenhouse I was given for Christmas. It went together very quickly with no tools (or frustration) needed! I just popped the bars together and voila there was a sturdy little shelf. I continued piecing together the frame then put the plastic covering over the frame and the little greenhouse was finished.
The mini greenhouse has four shelves that will hold several flats on each of the shelves very easily. It stands about 5 feet tall and has a slight peak at the top to provide for taller plants. It even has wheels to help move it around, although the package warns not to move the greenhouse with plants on the shelves.
Oops, I already ignored that suggestion!
It may have taken 20 minutes to put it together from start to finish. Inside the greenhouse I also rigged up a small light with some twine. That’s not very secure but it’s the best I had at hand and as long as no one plays around with it or we don’t have a big earthquake we should be fine! (Believe it or not I did feel an earthquake in TN once. It was centered in Alabama but we felt it when we lived in Knoxville.)
Before I had the greenhouse my cuttings were on plastic shelves near a window. Now I can use the shelves for other things! Pots, pots and more pots! Did I mention pots? I put the shelves in another corner of the garage where all the pots hung out and moved the pots to their new home. Moving the pots to these shelves cleared up a lot of clutter! I don’t think I threw out any nursery pots this year. They are good to re-use for temporary homes for plants and cuttings.
Uses for a Mini-Greenhouse
- Microgreens
- Cuttings and plant propagation
- Seed Starting
I still need to move my lemon trees to the back of the garage and several boxes to make a little more space for the car to fit but progress was made! It’s funny how one of the most useful rooms of the house gets completely bogged down with stuff to the point that it becomes the most useless room! I really wish we had a shed to store the mower and garden tools because of the space they occupy. We’ll do that eventually. Perhaps someday the garage will indeed be used for its intended purpose…
You can find a similar greenhouse here (Amazon Aff.): 4 Tier Mini Greenhouse. Also if you want to use it for seed starting you may want to explore a seed starting heat mat to use with the greenhouse.
I love your comment that it is funny how one of the most useful rooms in the house becomes a useless room. How true! But putting the greenhouse in the garage is an excellent idea. Never thought of it. I have my cuttings in the garage but always forget about them and then they dry up. I should have something like you have and I bet it will work great.
I think many home builders today are building a third garage into their homes. That would be nice to just have that extra bay for projects and storage so that the cares could have their home. Maybe a new room needs to be standardized into homes: “The Sheltered Indoor-Outdoor Storage, Equipment and Everything I Can’t Fit Into the House Room!”
Yeah but then we just expand our storage needs and before too long we are drowning in stuff! A lifetime of stuff! How about others reading-what do you think about the new room Dave came up with?
Don’t you like not moderating comments? You haven’t said if it is working for you or not? I hate it when blogs are moderated as it is a pain but I guess I understand why.
So far the non-moderating is pretty good. I only had one advertiser post in the past couple of weeks. So far so good!
I could learn a lot from you. I don’t know much about plant propagation or greenhouses but a woman I work with has offered me a small 4’x4′ glass house that belonged to her husband who just passed away. I want to accept it but am not sure where to put it or how to use it. Would it need to go in a sunny spot?
Phillip,
Good question! If it were me I would put it in a shady location for the growing season underneath deciduous trees. When winter comes the leaves will allow the sun to shine through and your green house should be usable year round. In the summer the shade will keep it cooler. Sounds like a nice little greenhouse. I hope to start a project for the fall with used windows and doors to make a green house in the backyard. It all depends on money…of course if I could find more scrap lumber I might be OK!