Lean-To Greenhouse

Bob's Lean-To Home Greenhouse

Our home greenhouse was a season extender, and it was also a vertical solar collector. It was 40 feet long and covered the south side of our house.

It was a 12 feet high, 6 feet wide at the bottom, and the lean-to part of it has a 65-degree slope. The total cost was about $300. It can reach 120 degrees F. at the top when 20 degrees F. outside. This heat was vented into the house with a fan or by opening the windows. Plants were easily tended in the bottomless 40 gallon drums lining the north wall along the house, which as I explain in the Rebar article is a good way to store heat at night, in my opinion.

The watermelon, cantaloupe, cukes and tomatoes climb up the wall in fencing wire, a jungle hanging down 11 feet high! I even cultivated a very large leafy luxuriant grapevine in there.

Although this was a favorite feature of ours, and produced tomatoes well into the start of winter, we no longer have the lean to because there's now a house extension for Margaret's Mother in the spot where it had been. The house extension is nice too, and it was wonderful to have those years with Mother here. (She has now moved further east.) We included this feature on our website because we think it's worth sharing with you what can be done with an inexpensive lean to greenhouse on the south side of a home.

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