Warm and Welcoming: Tour a Vintage-Inspired Greenhouse in Montana

I spend a lot of time in the greenhouse, and love items with a story, so I knew I wanted to incorporate older pieces that didn’t detract from, but would add to, the space as a whole. The nice thing about these items, too, is that when they aren’t in use here, I can use them in our day-to-day lives. It makes sense to me to invest in multi-functional pieces that could work anywhere. As a general rule, I stayed away from metal, as it can get up to 120 degrees inside the greenhouse in the summer, so I opted for materials like wood and ceramic.

The 14-foot-by-20-foot kit is from Cedar Built Greenhouses. I chose to go with a custom, wider build (their typical greenhouse is 12 feet) because I wanted the space to fit a dinner table inside for events or hosting. There are eight automatic vents on the roof to let hot air out in the summer, and we place two fans near the floor vents to help move some air through when it starts to warm up. Some greenhouses come with built-in fans. The plexiglass windows highlight the viewshed from the growing beds. In Montana, we are surrounded by mountain ranges, and see the occasional summer rainbow after a mid-afternoon downpour.

Small seeds like celery, snapdragons and onions can be started in smaller flats and then transplanted when they outgrow this space. The Montana growing season is painfully short (just over 100 days where we live, in Zone 4), so we start most of our plants in February and March to place out in the garden after mid-May. This year, I’m really excited to be growing safflower and seashell cosmos, and growing mini watermelons vertically in the greenhouse.

During the Round Top Antique Show in Texas last year, I found this antique tobacco harvesting table from Old Farmhouse Primitives. I knew it was the perfect fit for a potting table because the screen (previously used for harvesting tobacco leaves) could be used to collect extra soil so it can be dumped back into the container. It’s higher than a typical table and has plenty of room for storage underneath. Thinking outside the box on what a potting bench could look like can help bring some uniqueness to your space, and can bring life into old pieces — a baker’s table with a possum belly drawer could work, too!