So you’ve joined the backyard garden revolution and are now growing as much of your own food as possible. If you’re ready to stretch your growing season into the wintertime (or, at least, later into the fall), consider a greenhouse.

Not only does a greenhouse let you grow food during more of the year, but it can also help you go organic by protecting your plants from weeds and bugs. Insects can usually be avoided by planting from seed and those that do find a way inside can be battled easily with beneficial bugs, like ladybugs, praying mantises and small wasps.

While the cheapest way to set up a hothouse in your backyard is by building it yourself from the basic materials, like this DIY hoop house structure built for $150 (or $50 if you can recycle some of the materials), for those of us not quite ready, or with enough time, to commit to such an extensive project, you can order a greenhouse by mail.

The cost of a kit will depend on whether you go with a small, plastic structure– costing as little as a few hundred dollars- or a larger, more permanent, glass house– often over a thousand dollars.

In this video, we visit our faircompanies uncle and aunt in Extremadura, Spain where they show us the greenhouse they assembled from a kit which should provide them with veggies all year round.

*Note while in the video Paco talks about installing a heater, this isn’t necessary for much of the year, and to avoid using fossil fuels completely, there are passive solar greenhouse options.

We also have a video on traditional green building techniques in small town Spain and a DIY on growing a veggie garden in a small space.