Many homeowners today are interested in gardening and having a greenhouse to either sustain plants over the colder months or to at least grow all of their starter plants for spring planting. The good news is that you can either take a wooden garden shed and modify it to make a greenhouse or you can modify part of the wooden garden shed to make it a mini greenhouse.

HOW TO MAKE MY WOODEN GARDEN SHED A GREENHOUSE – With two simple modifications you can easily make your wooden garden sheds into greenhouses or mini greenhouses. The first method is to turn the wooden garden shed into a greenhouse by installing fiberglass panels for both the roofing cover and the siding for the wooden garden shed. Fiberglass panels will allow all of the light you need to turn the wooden garden shed into a greenhouse. So if you know from the start that you want a greenhouse then simply use the fiberglass panels for the siding and the roofing and you have a greenhouse. It really is that simple.

PARTIAL GREENHOUSE OUT OF MY WOODEN GARDEN sheds – In this method instead of making a whole wooden garden shed a greenhouse simply do a section of the roof in fiberglass panels and make the walls nearby or a wall section out of fiberglass panels and you have a perfect little mini greenhouse. At the bottom of this article there will a get link rapidshare to my website where you can see a picture of a modified wooden garden shed where a section is made into a greenhouse.

HOW HARD IS IT TO INSTALL THE FIBERGLASS PANELS –The beauty of using fiberglass panels to make your mini greenhouse is that they can be easily installed and are lightweight. For cutting the panels you will need a saw blade that is made to cut fiberglass or plexi-glass and these can be found at your local home improvement center or lumber yard. You will also need to pick up the specialized nails or screws to use to install these panels. The nails/screws will have a rubber grommet around them to prevent moisture from coming down the nail/screw plus these will allow you to nail the panel without crushing the fiberglass. Also because the fiberglass panels are ridged they simply overlap from side to side to prevent moisture from coming in and the panels are also overlapped from top to bottom to provide the proper sealing and drainage off of the roof.

DO I JUST SCREW THE PANELS INTO THE RAFTERS AND STUDS OF MY WOODEN GARDEN SHED – Where you buy your fiberglass panels they will also have some backer type boards that are pre-cut to match the ridges in the fiberglass panels. These are nailed onto the support that you have placed across the rafters or wall studs. By running 1” x 4” material perpendicular to the roof rafters or wall studs you will have a place to attach these ridged support boards. You then screw the fiberglass panels to these support members.

There really is not much you have to do to have a wooden greenhouse.  Modifying part of a larger wooden garden shed to make a greenhouse gives you the best of both worlds. You still have a portion of the wooden garden shed that you can use for storage or as a potting shed and you also have the greenhouse section.

HELPFUL TIP – Always pre-drill the holes where you are going to screw the fiberglass panels. This will keep you from starting cracks in the panels when you attach them to the studs/rafters of your wooden garden sheds.

HELPFUL TIP – To seal off the section of the wall that I have installed fiberglass panels on for the greenhouse section of the wooden garden shed I staple clear plastic sheeting on the inside of that wall to the wall studs. I then screw lathe boards to the studs to help hold the plastic sheeting. Now you have a dead air space that allows for better insulation of your wooden garden shed/greenhouse. Use the thicker plastic sheeting so it will last longer. Keep in mind if you have to change the plastic sheeting you simply unscrew the lathe boards, replace the sheeting and reattach the lathe boards. By using the lathe boards with screws it makes the job easy.