I'm gonna open the greenhouse up in another week-been getting my plants ready to go in there-I've been taking cuttings of plants all day-and have plenty of tropicals to dig up.I still need to wash the inside of the greenhouse-and do some caulking.Gettin excited about getting all the plants in there!!! Mark

I'm just trying to find room in the GH for all of my plants.

Bananas that were 1 pot are now 4 pots. I mercilessly pruned back the guava trees, probably by 40%, after most of their crop was harvested. The passionfruit got cut back by 80%. I took out a papaya with a 6" diameter trunk, that should help. Some things are buggy, they will get a spray outside before they go back in. I still need to get the insulation up, but I figure I can do that a little later.

Just not enough time during soccer season.

SB

Hey Barb,

I've cleaned everything up in my greenhouse and built a couple more gh benches. I've been moving my Koi into my gh pond. The addition of my pond was one of the BEST decisions I've made. I was having a hard time keeping up the humidity in my gh. With the addition of my pond I can consistently keep it above 40%.

I'm currently taking cuttings of all my annuals and some of my perennials that I want to multiply. I've planted a lot of apple tree seeds as I want to graft some of my apple tree scion onto the seedlings later this Spring. I want to make a fence of espalier with them this spring. I have so many seeds and cuttings already started that I will have my hands full this winter transplanting them into larger pots. I love it!

I've also collected quite a large collection of tropical fruit trees from all over the world this Spring. So it will be fun trying to get all of them to grow on in hopes of fruit within the next couple years.

Great question Barb. I can't wait to hear what everyone is doing in the gh.

Today I worked on a shelf unit. I'll work next week but I'm taking a week of vacation time the week of Oct. 13-17. I'll use those days to put everything in the greenhouse. First I'll check the greenhouse for any needed repairs and re-sealing. I'll clean it well and empty the lawn tools from it. I'll prune the plants, take cuttings of the brugs, coleus, put the plants in (it's like a jigsaw puzzle) and then check the heaters. We may not have a frost until December but we may also have a frost anytime after 15 Oct. I do a lot of container gardening so the front and back yards will soon be empty.

Trying to sell off several plants before the last move into the greenhouse. Lychees and longan will be the last to move in. Some things still need to go. Also trying to push a lot of growth before the temps drop for good. Got one of the heaters hooked up for our over night drops. The other needs the guts replaced.

Moved a crap load of seedlings inside...taking up a lot of room. Did some grafting. Have to remove a huge banana that just had the fruit bunch chopped off. Nothing like trying to dig up and remove a 13' plant with a 12"+ diameter trunk!! Others will need some pruning as well.

I've been busy digging caladium bulbs hoping I can keep them through the winter for starting early in the greenhouse next spring. Have dug about 500 I think - don't know how many will make it. Any tips on storing bulbs???? Need to start taking cuttings from coleus & checking to see if my ferns are too rootbound for the winter. Too much to do & not enough time. We're in a severe drought in NW Tenn & are just trying to minimize the damage - have lost so many plants. We were just declared an agricultural disaster area here - I'm losing plants & trees - unfortunately our farmers are losing a chunck of their income.
Rain's in the forcast for tommorrow!!!!!

Kim

Most of my plants are already either in the sun room or in the Rion GH. No frost or real cold here yet, but one night did get down to 45F. I'm trying peppers, tomatoes and herbs again. The rest are cacti and tropicals. A real mixed bag for sure. :)

I'm still trying to get DH to complete projects on the greenhouse. He did run the electrical but not the water yet. He is starting on weatherstripping. We bought it last year and bought bubble wrap last year too. It is full of tropical plants who need to be warm and he realizes now what it would cost to replace them all.....

Like the cereal commercial: "Nuttin' Honey".

I'm in the same boat as Kim - too much to do and too little time. I'm hoping for the rare convergence of suitable weather and a few family members being available to give me a hand with a fast but thorough clean out/clean up/refill project before frost. Average frost date here is October 31.

While neglecting my own little GH, I've taken on a project at work in hopes of rescuing the 7'x25' greenhouse attached to our horticultural center, so must research and write up a proposal for renovation and use as a primarily solar-based cool greenhouse. Have been meaning to start a thread on that here for some tips ... but, again, so little time.

Kim, that's a lot of caladiums! The following advice is from the U. of North Carolina Extension Service and worked well for me:

In the fall with the onset of cool nights, the leaves will begin to fade and droop. Before the leaves have lost all color and before soil temperatures drop below 55*F, dig the tubers that are to be saved, retaining the foliage, and sort them by color or cultivar. Spread them out in an area protected from rain and cold, and allow them to dry for a week. Do not place in full sun. After leaves have dried, cut them from the tubers. Store the tubers in mesh orange or onion bags; or pack lightly in dry sphagnum moss and store them where the temperature will not fall below 60*F.

Apparently rot is the biggest problem, with selection of disease-free tubers and storage at the recommended temperature in low humidity being the best defense.

Good luck, Kim and everyone!

Diane

Diane,

Thanks so much for the info. It seems that I've done O.K. so far. Just got them all sorted & dried & have found mesh bags for storage - just got to figure out where I can store them for the winter that will be the right temp & humidity. We didn't keep out temps in the greenhouse quite that high last year.

We ordered a 20 lb box of blubs from Florida last winter & they were just great this summer. Hope they won't rot!!

Wow - your project sound exciting - and a lot of work. Good luck - keep us posted on your findings. We're always looking for new & innovative ways of doing things at our house. Makes for way too many projects sometimes though.

Kim

1/3 of the way finished with laying my brick floor. I'm going out of town for 10 days, so I'll have to finish quickly when I return. Fortunately the coolest temps we expect over the next 2 weeks are 50 ish.

when I return and finish the floor, in goes all the benches etc. (some old and some new stuff) but much better organization. Then I'll round up all the plants I have room for...then I'll get the heaters out and use as needed. Again fortunately that is not too often or for too long. photos when I return and get this done :)

Kim - do you have an unheated basement area to store those caladium tubers? Sometimes there are spots around the house, you just have to search them out. A closet or cabinet on an exterior wall? (My kitchen is a northwest exposure, so the corner base cabinet is usually pretty chilly). We have an enclosed but unheated front foyer that is usually pretty cool, especially the coat closets, which are also conveniently dark. Hope these give you some ideas.

LOL, as for my project, I was hoping to get some ideas here! I know there have been discussions on unheated/cool greenhouses, but weeding through the search results is taking forever.

Rjinga - Wow, a brick floor ... how classy! Can't wait to see photos.

Diane

Kim, I bet your gardens were spectacular with all those caladiums.

Diane, Your project sounds wonderful. I did not heat my greenhouse last winter. The temperatures were very similar to the outdoor temperatures. I will be heating it for the first time this winter. I'm a bit nervous as I have quite a few plants stuffed in there and would hate to lose them.

We are supposed to have the temps drop to 20 deg F tonight. Tonight I worked like a maniac trying to bring all my plants into the gh. It does not take long to run out of room eh? They are also forecasting snow for later this week. Great! The first winter I want to heat my gh and it's cold early and the snow is a surprise as we've not had much snow for years.

I will have to do some serious organizing the next couple days to allow me to move around in there....not to mention the hundreds of cutting I have rooting that will need to be potted AND all the seeds I intend to plant for next summers gardens. ha ha...FUN!

~Tj~

Ladyltus,

Snow already! Wow I thought Wi was bad. I remember your gh from last winter and you working on it. You must have lots of plants to fill that huge GH. lol

Rjinga cant wait to see the floor. It will be so pretty.

Kim that is a lot of bulbs. I bet it was a knockout. I didnt have much luck this year with caladiums and I really like them too.

I have a GW member coming today for a visit. I have to remove some plants from the gh so we can fit. LOL Still waiting for the brug to flower so I can cut her up. She is taking forever..... Nice to see everyone.... Barb

In greenhouse #1, we're harvesting as many tomatoes as we can. We brought them into the house using a wheelbarrow. That gives you an idea of how many pounds we collected.

Our turnips and bok choi are growing well, and should provide for us for the next month or so. We'll be bringing in all the basil and transplanting some thyme into our sunroom to preserve that wonderful fresh herb throughout the winter.

We'll be using row covers in about a week to help the Swiss Chard and others hang in their as winter sets in. This will be our first season of trying to harvest into the winter, so we'll do some learning I am sure.

In greenhouse #2, the winter squash on the north side has gone down for the season, so we harvested all the Small Wonders, Table Queens, Thelma Sanders, Delicata and Butternuts. Nearly 200 pounds in all. I think we have enough for the winter.

The Butterstick summer squash are hanging in their and providing their last few small fruits. They are wonderful hardy producers. The Magda, Gold Rush, Star Ship, Sunburst and Woods patty pans aren't producing anymore, but they have cute little two inch buttons that need to be rounded up for the chickens.

We harvested nearly 300 pounds over the season of summer squash, so our freezers have plenty stocked up, and our neighbors are grateful.

I'll be finishing our third greenhouse this fall so we are ready to put that into production in the early spring. The link below will take you to pictures of the greenhouses and our harvests.

Clair

Here is a link that might be useful: Our greenhouses and harvest.

Diane - I don't have a basement but do have a utility closet that stays a little cooler than the rest of the house. Will try that

Rjinga - I don't envy laying that brick floor - we did a porch on the front of our greenhouse & that nearly killed me!! It will look wonderful when you get it done.

Barb - The caladiums were beautiful this summer - we're in deep shade & they are one of the few ways to get color in our garden. Took a couple of weeks to get them all dug & sorted.

Ladylotus - Thats a lot of cuttings & rootings. Can't believe you're already seeing 20's. We've got a few weeks of warm weather left - I hope!

Claire - I viewed your greenhouses on your link. I'm really interested in your heating system. We're hoping to something similar using a woodburing stove rather than the solar panels(we live in the woods). Had talked of putting storage tanks in the greenhouse for the warm water & perhaps burying the pipe in our sand covered by inches of pea gravel flooring. Have you had good luck with yours??

Off tomorrow for Columbus Day, so got a start today on prepping the greenhouse for the coming season. GH is now clean, but everything is still out on the back lawn; tomorrow will finish cleaning up/trimming back the plants and put things back ... Just can't decide whether I want to put the main bench back against the north wall as I had it the first year. Pros and cons to both arrangements. It's just not the kind of thing you want to go changing in January, LOL. I noticed the tape on many of the twinwall panels is due for replacement. Average first frost date here is Oct. 31, so I've got lots of time ;-)

Anyone else have the day off tomorrow and have plans for the day?

On Sunday I cleaned out the pond in the greenhouse. I was full of mud and gravel from tipped over pots. I am about to buy an aquarium heater to keep it warm over winter so that my tropical waterlilies don't die again. Just heating the greenhouse has not worked and they've died the last two years though other tropical aquatic plants like taro, papyrus, cyperus have been fine.

DH has weatherstripped around part of the panels.

Krayers:

My system in GH#1 has worked very well for nearly all of the season. It has reached a high of 109 degree underground about 1 foot. It made a big difference in the early spring as the temperature in the single layer greenhouse stayed much higher overnight once the system was up and running for a few days.

You are probably aware that with single layer greenhouses, the nighttime temperatures drop to nearly ambient, with only a few degrees difference between outside and inside. With the underground hot water system, I saw 12 degree temperature differences overnight in less than a week.

Unfortunately, I think the fliter on the intake has become clogged with sediment. I will have to remove that and fliter (with nylon stockings) at the discharge where I can get at it for periodic cleaning. I believe the sediment from the old solar panel slowly built up on the filter inside the tank.

I will also change the configuration of the piping this winter. Instead of heating the walkways, it will be increased to heat everywhere about 1 foot deep. That should provide for great thermal mass for the enclosure, and help put heat right where the roots need it.

The idea of wood heat is fine, but you're going to be busy feeding the fire. A wood fire will only last an hour or so at it's peak, so unless you have a large capacity stove, it will be inconvenient.

I will be making simple waste oil burners for the greenhouses. These can run all night long at the same high temperature, and they should be relatively clean burning since they will be fed air by a blower.

It is important to recognize that I'm not trying to fight nature, but rather help it along a bit during season startup and season's end. Any heating system I have will be supplemental at best. I won't try to heat the greenhouse to a comfortable temperature all winter. Instead, I'll adjust what I am growing to be cold weather tolerant.

Fighting nature is just too hard.

For those interested in what can be grown/harvested over the winter in a greenhouse without supplemental heat, see the link below.

Clair

Here is a link that might be useful: Cold weather vegetables