3' x 6' Mini Heated and Insulated Greenhouse

14 years ago

Stumbled onto this forum and wanting some 'wise advice'. After growing weary of having such a short growing season for my warm season vegetables, I am trying out new ideas. This year, I am wanting to supplement my main season crops with a small collection of early started vegetables.

This would include individual plantings of a Stupice tomato, a Bush Champion cucumber, an Early Prolific squash, a Long Oriental eggplant, a Minnesota Midget muskmelon, a Super Chili hot pepper, and Red LaSoda potato into 6 self-watering 5 gallon buckets. These would be started indoors around March 1, 2010, and set outdoors around April 1, 2010.

I would like to build a small structure to allow placing these buckets outdoors in weather that can range from the upper teens to upper twenties at night to upper thirties and low fifties during the afternoon and maintain a temperature around 60 to 75 degrees. I work away from home during the day and would not be able to address things like excess heat build up or closing vents on cold days. I do have electricity and water sources nearby. Since I normally plant outdoors during the second week of May, this structure would not need to be long term. However, I can see using it again in fall.

Since, it seems like a lot of smart gardeners are on this forum, I would assume that I am not the only one who has thought about doing such an adventure. If you could point me to good old posts about such plans, I would be most appreciative. Thank you!

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Comments (12)

patiofarmer
14 years ago
I just finished putting together a little system inside a cheap greenhouse I bought to control the temperature both hot and cold....

How do I attach pictures??? Anyone know?
eric_wa
14 years ago
patiofarmer, I upload pictures through Photobucket

You cut and paste the HTML code into the "message" body.

Eric
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deep_roots
Original Author
14 years ago
PatioFarmer, Upload your pictures to an Internet site like Photobucket, as eric_wa suggests. Click on my member name and send me an email. I will reply back with more detailed instructions on posting digital pictures.

An alternative is to copy the web address from where your photo is located and just paste that here with instructions to go to that website to see the picture.

A second alternative is to message me, and I will send you my email address to which you can attach the photos when you reply to my email.

Just trying to keep things easy!
eric_wa
14 years ago
patiofarmer,

***An alternative is to copy the web address from where your photo is located and just paste that here with instructions to go to that website to see the picture.***

If you go this route, all your photos will be available for public viewing. I don't have a problem with that, but I have nothing personal on photobucket.

Eric
engineeredgarden
14 years ago
deep roots - I can help you build anything you like, but financial investment for materials would certainly be an important factor to take into consideration.

For instance - I have a fully automated propagation system for my heirloom tomato seedlings, and the parts alone run around $1500. It has a programmable controller with touchpanel, and also records temperatures of each zone based on the parameters I choose with my programming code. However, I'm also gonna be automating my coldframes with much more conventional controls, which might be more suitable for you.

EG
Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
14 years ago
I put out my toms ~ 4/1-ish, started soon, planted very deeply and protected with Walls o' Water for a last frost date of ~ 5/15. Below 15ÂºF and I'll throw a row cover over. No structure needed. The top grows slowly but the roots really go, and you take the WoWs off and pop!
deep_roots
Original Author
14 years ago
engineeredgarden, I have been through your neighborhood, enjoying that zone 7 weather. Amazing anything grows in that nasty red dirt down there. I would bore you with tales of the ice and snow that I suffer, but have seen pictures of the snow you got this February. It is amazing how insidious that cold air can be, how it creeps through the smallest of holes and clutches plants in a stranglehold. I appreciate your offer to assist with my build! After seeing your power auger invention, you certainly have the technical genius combined with no fear to tackle any challenge. Pretty sure that I can build the heavily insulated structure with only a south wall exposed to sunlight with multi-wall polycarbonate or double layer bubble wrap. I am not quite sure if I can work out the thermo switch to kick on a fan to blow hot air outside, or to pull cold air inside. Do you know a source?

dan_staley, even if I set my tomatoes out in early April, my soil temperatures are still 48 to 50 degrees. I am considering soil heat cables with a water wall above. Will experiment this way in addition to building the mini greenhouse for my self-watering buckets. Thanks for your input!
Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
14 years ago
Here I put out black fabric, DR, to warm the soil. My WoWs go in the SWCs as well. Tons of sun here, tho.

Dan
engineeredgarden
14 years ago
deep roots - Use a thermostat out of a broken window air conditioning unit, as it has the temperature range that is ideal. Let it control a couple of cpu fans from a personal computer ( when computers are thrown away, usually the fans are still good, and require 12vdc to operate ), and pick up a power adapter from radio shack that has an output voltage of 12vdc, @ around 600-800 milliamps. Problem solved.

BTW, i'm glad you liked my auger system - I build alot of crazy things for the garden. Hehe...

EG
eric_wa
14 years ago
engine,

I'd like to see your auger, do you have a link to it??

Eric
engineeredgarden
14 years ago
Eric - sure, no problem. There's a video of it on my site, and also several posts about it.

EG

Here is a link that might be useful: here
sfallen2002
14 years ago
Pretty nice engineer! Now if you could just work out the 200mpg engine while you're whiling away the hours dreaming up your next garden gadget the rest of us could have fun too :)

3' x 6' Mini Heated and Insulated Greenhouse

Comments (12)

patiofarmer

eric_wa

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deep_roots
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Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)

engineeredgarden

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engineeredgarden

sfallen2002

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3' x 6' Mini Heated and Insulated Greenhouse

Comments (12)

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