Bench Set Up
Printer-friendly versionI have a 30x40 foot columbine roofed commercial quality greenhouse with all the cooling, heating, thermostatic controlled roof vents etc. It stands north to south due to location and wind protection. We live at 4200ft and will experience a range in temperature of 18-110 F, 100 mph winds, and 40lb snow load. If you were arranging your benches which I have not bought yet ... what would you suggest for arrangement and table top size? I have only placed peat rock on the floor and would like to keep a 10x40ft west wall open for the production of flowers planted directly in the earth. The interior must remain assessable for handicapped students. What would you suggest on which bench type material to purchase, sizes, and arrangement? (This is a school greenhouse.)
Anza - In our local master gardener greenhouse (20 X 40 "igloo" double poly) we have experimented with several different bench setups. We do use the greenhouse for classes but it is not handicapped accessable). This is the configuration we've found that works for us.
On the door end we have a 12 foot workbench (at about 36 inch height) backed against the front wall. We used a standard 12 foot counter-top purchased from the local building supply store (its a laminate) with a frame made from 2X4 and 4X4. For the rest of the greenhouse we have 8 foot by 3 foot benches that are about 18 inches high. The benches have their short end against the side walls leaving a 4 foot aisle down the middle of the greenhouse. Between each bench we have a 2 foot aisle. This gives us 5 benches down each side (each bench takes 3 foot plus 2 foot aisle) with about 15 foot workspace at the front that has the workbench.
Sorry if the explanation is hard to follow - basically the door end is our workspace / workcounter and the rest of the grenhouse is bench area with center aisle and "watering aisles". We seed / transplant in the work area, move the plants to the benches and hopefully make watering them as easy as possible. We usually have from 5 to 10 people working each day.
A few things we've found over the years.
1. We always need more workspace. Early in the season we spread out some of our seeding and transplanting off of the workbench since the rest of the greenhose is empty.
2. As the season progresses the watering can take up to a couple hours a day. Putting the benches down a little lower helps with the watering since you can look down on the plants.
3. We hang baskets down the center aisle. We found that hanging baskets over the benches is not a good idea - the water dripping off the baskets will cause problems with plants below. Our layout allows us to keep the baskets over the central open aisle - makes it tough to walk buy keeps the plants (below) safe.
4. Did I mention that we always need more space? We move any plants that can take cool growing out of the greenhouse to a large coldframe - we still run out of room.
I posted a picture of the inside at the end of the season under the "we need pics" topic.
Hope this helps.
I have a 30x40 foot columbine roofed commercial quality greenhouse with all the cooling, heating, thermostatic controlled roof vents etc. It stands north to south due to location and wind protection. We live at 4200ft and will experience a range in temperature of 18-110 F, 100 mph winds, and 40lb snow load. If you were arranging your benches which I have not bought yet ... what would you suggest for arrangement and table top size? I have only placed peat rock on the floor and would like to keep a 10x40ft west wall open for the production of flowers planted directly in the earth. The interior must remain assessable for handicapped students. What would you suggest on which bench type material to purchase, sizes, and arrangement? (This is a school greenhouse.)
How about a free layout service? IGC is a distributor for Benchmaster greenhouse benches. They will give you a free layout. IIRC, all you have to do is send them a sketch with your dimensions and they will give you a full layout. Then you can buy the fixtures through IGC. They do this as a free service for all of their customers.
Hope this helps.
-Matt
You can really set up the benches however you feel is the most efficient. Being handicapped accessible though probably means 4' aisles and probably 30" tall. You'll want to check the ADA requirements for your application.
If there is a poured concrete slab to mount to, fixed benches are a good option. They can be bolted directly to the concrete. Even if there is a gravel floor, fixed benches are still an option but installation is more complicated.
Along the same lines are portable steel benches. Very similar to the fixed benches, but they have steel legs mounted to the bench top that don't require fastening to the ground. This allows you to change your configuration.
Feel free to check out all of our benches to get an idea of what is available to you. There really isn't a right or wrong way to go about it.