Review of the Vevor 15x7x7 Greenhouse
Our unboxing to set up. And life with this little greenhouse
HOMESTEAD
Bjarni
1/18/20246 min read
Introduction
Winter gardening can be a challenging endeavor, but with the right tools and equipment, it is possible to extend the growing season and continue growing plants even in colder climates. One such tool is the Vevor 15x7x7 poly tube greenhouse, which offers an affordable and practical solution for seed starting and protecting plants during the winter months. This will be a semi long term blog on this little project.
But First:
Overview of the Greenhouse
The Vevor 15x7x7 greenhouse is a lightweight greenhouse. It has a frame made from galvanized steel tubes, about 3/4 in diameter, and covered in a polyethylene fabric with fiber reinforcement. . The greenhouse measures 15 feet in length, 7 feet in width, and 7 feet in height, providing decent space for growing a variety of plants.
Assembly of our greenhouse.
Here we come to the meat of this little greenhouse. Over all it went well. It took me about 3 hours to put it together. My lovely wife Christine, she helped me with the fabric. It was packaged well and was very easy to remove from the box. Once I got every thing out, I laid it out and did inventory to match the parts to the instruction parts list.
First off the instructions are not as terrible as they could have been. I got the hoops assembled and was starting the walls and its short 4 1.25" bolts. (*^&(*%#YUI#)^#&#+ short items!
So its off to the local Tractor Supply.(We live WAY out in the woods of South Carolina and it and Walmart are the only things open on a Sunday. Well back to the house and get the hoops finished and start the walls.
The walls went up well and the hoop installation was very easy
Now I want y'all to focus on the top of the hoop. There is a tube that runs the length of the greenhouse. to give support. Well at this point I was out of the shorter bolts and for some reason had 5 of the long ones left over. WTH??? So I looked at the tubes and the short bolts at the very apex of the hoop and there was NO way that the ridge pole was attaching to those short bolts. I looked at the 5 long bolts left and again at thje ridge pole....... And BOOM it was like Thor smacked me with Mjölnir. Those 5 long bolts go in the apex and those short bolts that I was short are now found! (PS ignore the loose siding, We had a rough storm and this was the first clear day. They have since been re-seated!) We did not take any pictures of us covering it, My wife REFUSED to have pictures taken of her. But it went on easy.
Observations during assembly and final fitting.
Over all it went very well. Even with the bad Google Translations of Chinese to English. It came with a stamped steel 10mm wrench and a decent 4mm Allen wrench. I was first thinking. "I'm going to put this together with the tools they sent." That lasted all of putting together one hoop! Ratchet and a 10 mm socket. Ratchet screwdriver with a 4mm Allen bit and a 10mm wrench, Now we're cooking with grease! Do not over tighten the bolts. You will crush the tubing, which may weaken it.I was concerned that since the bolts didn't "feel" tight they would get a bit lose in time. So we tighened till snug and put a drop of super glue on them. Why superglue and not LockTite? If we need to take it down a spritz of nail polish remover will remove the super glue. Locktite don't play like that. Anchoring. The instructions suggested that we dig a 20cmx20cm trench the size of the frame and bury it and the the bottom of the fabric. While appealing we live in an area we can get the tail end of a hurricane and tropical storms. Christine thought that f wee need to take off the fabric for a storm, digging it up may cause damage to it and delay the work. Other than that there is no real way of anchoring it. I thought long stakes to the footing,, but they would need to be 2 feet long. Then, IDEA!!! What we ended up doing is takikng 4' T posts, driving them in the ground about 2 feet. Using electric fence wire we looped it around the upper horizontal bar at each corner, then to the T post. Snugged best we could, then tapped the T post in more to tighten the wire. Works like CHARM!
Right now we just have my mother's cactus in with a couple of halogen lights. And do not even get me started on light bulbs due to new regulations you can not legally purchased halogen nor incandescent bulbs. T
This has been in the making since 2007, but finally became law August 1, 2023. So all us with chickens to keep warm, well houses to keep warm and greenhouses to keep above freezing on the cheap are out of luck. Well. Almost. Enter our friends that keep reptiles. Reptile enclosure warmers have the same wattage as the more common bulbs we used to keep things warm in the winter But with out the light. Which makes it nicer for neighbors that live close and 2, 100 watt bulbs in the green house shining on them. Enter the reptile house no light heat lamp. We have some on order and will post updates on them. But they appear to be a good solution at first glance. And much friendlier to the night sky
WE'll have a link paragraph below with all sort of cool links.
The greenhouse has only been up since Sunday the 14th of January, so really not much to report. But has the winter progresses to spring I'll post updates it's performance.
Links
First our Greenhouse. The Vevor 15x7x7 Tube Poly House. Unfortunately the price has gone up for this brand to $119.00
The T-Posts to anchor it
And the no light heat lamps. (This may make another appearance in a poultry post!)
UPDATE! 1-22-24
Since we've assembled the little greenhouse we've had some weather here in South Carolina. We've had some wind, Nothing like what we would have in New Mexico, but 3-40 mph winds. And with the anchoring system we made up things held down well. We are also collecting buckets, painting them black and lining the southwest wall of the greenhouse. to store daytime heat. Pictures to follow soon!!!
Chuck
