Making Plant Benches from Scrap Lumber

You can’t have a greenhouse garden shed without having a place to put the plants can you? I’ve finally gotten far enough along that I can assemble a long plant bench. Since I’ve collected scrap lumber from a variety of projects and people I decided to use that for this first plant bench. As money allows I may upgrade or add to this bench but for now this will work just fine.

The base bench is made from 2″x4″s and is 8 feet long. On top of that is a second shelf that is only 4 feet long. I wanted to leave the area to the right open to allow for taller plants and I didn’t want to impede the light from the front window. I can always add more shelves later. 

I bought this coated square mesh to cover the open areas. It will allow light and water to go through to the bottom and is capable of holding pots of plants above it. Should I need more reinforcement below the mesh I can always add that later too! I still need to put 4 more panels of mesh over the bench before bringing in the plants but I’m close – very close!

I’ve also been measuring my daytime/nighttime and inside/outside temperatures lately to check on how well insulated the shed is. By comparing the temperatures at various times of the day I’ve noticed that the shed holds a 12-14 degree temperature difference between it and the outside temperature. In the morning it’s warmer than the outside air and in the afternoon it’s cooler than the outside temperature. I still need to insulate and add weather stripping to some of the major gaps around windows which will hopefully improve the shed’s temperature holding capabilities! The better I can manage that the less I have to worry with the expense of heating it!