Turn a Greenhouse into a Bean Trellis

During the winter months, I love spending time each day out in my small plastic walk-in greenhouse. For the past few years, I have successfully grown pansies and lettuce throughout the cold days of January and February. But now that the temperatures are rising, it’s really too hot to grow anything inside my greenhouse. This summer, I’m repurposing my little greenhouse and turning it into a place to grow beans, peas, and more lettuce. Here is an update on how that transition is going and a peek into what I’m harvesting!

This post includes affiliate links. Some products were received to facilitate this post.

Turn a Greenhouse into a Bean Trellis

If you have ever walked into a plastic greenhouse when the outside temperature is in the high 70s, then you know that the inside temperature gets over 100 degrees with high humidity. Since that is not the ideal temperature or environment for plants, flowers, and vegetables, I decided to try to turn my greenhouse structure into a growing trellis.

Several weeks ago, I planted beans on the one side of the greenhouse in a simple raised bed with the idea that as the beans grow I would train them to attach to the structure and use it as a trellis. I’m so excited to see that my first few beans have already attached and are growing through the wire shelving. I’ve even picked a few of the snap peas.

Since that seems to be working on the one side, I added a few bricks and a piece of wood on the other side, added some fill dirt, and planted peas earlier this week. Now I’m just waiting for the first seeds to sprout and start growing.

Buy a walk-in greenhouse on Amazon.com

I planted some lettuce around the beans with the idea that as the beans grow, they will enjoy the cooler microclimate and give the lettuce the perfect place to grow. I’ll let you know if this works as the temperature gets even hotter this summer. But for right now, I’m able to cut lettuce under the early bean plants.

Watering Tip when there’s no hose

What do you do when you want to garden in a place where there is no water access? Sure, you can run a new water faucet but what if that’s not an easy option right now? My greenhouse and under the porch container garden are not reachable by a water hose so I use milk gallon jugs. I wash them out and fill them with water about once a month. Then I store them in the corner behind some concrete blocks that I use for flower stands. That gives me easy water access without having to install a new water faucet.

Have you ever grown plants and vegetables in a plastic walk-in greenhouse? Did you use it during the summer or let it just sit all season long? I’d love to hear what you think of this idea to repurpose the structure for a trellis.

---

---

Raised Bed Gardening

Add a new book to your summer reading list and learn more about creating raised garden beds.

Whether your yard is big or small, raised beds are the perfect fit. They allow you to create a controlled growing environment, filled with fertile soil, where plants thrive. Raised beds help gardeners overcome rocky or less-than-ideal soils, there’s little to no weeding involved, and they can be as large or as petite as you’d like. You can even use an elevated or mobile raised bed if the only sunny space you have to grow is on a patio, deck, or driveway. In The First-Time Gardener: Raised Bed Gardening, you’ll learn how to select the best raised bed for your space, what to fill it with, and tips for staking and trellising plants to save space and improve yields.

The First-Time Gardener: Raised Bed Gardening