Greenhouse Question
Jackie McCarty
12 years ago
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rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
12 years agoTiffany, purpleinopp Z8b Opp, AL
12 years agoRelated Discussions
greenhouse question
Comments (14)If I ever decide to plant in the ground inside the greenhouse, I'll have to move the greenhouse inside one of the fenced garden plots in order to keep our cats out. That first year, or maybe the second year, we built raised beds along one side and I was going to grow stuff in them in winter, but the cats thought I was building them a nice warm kitty cat outhouse with big, deep beds of enriched soil. That put a halt to me growing anything in there. We moved those beds to the big garden, one wheelbarrow load of soil at a time. The cats don't bother the plants or the soil in containers in the greenhouse, but they wouldn't leave the raised beds alone. Our greenhouse is sort of at the bottom of a slope because our neighbor's land to the south of the greenhouse is higher than our land, and that would be an issue almost anywhere on our property as their rain runoff mostly all runs downhill towards us. So, a little water stands there by the greenhouse (more outside of it than inside of it) when we have heavy rain, but we don't have heavy rain very often. Our clay soil doesn't drain quickly but we are always so rain-starved that I don't mind having a little standing water. It beats tripping over the cracks in the ground when no rain is falling. Before we built the greenhouse, its site was a weedy mess, so the greenhouse sure was an improvement over what was there before. I always thought I'd have a paver or gravel walkway in there but we never got around to putting in that walkway and I discovered it works fine with just plain old soil under mulch. I was out in the greenhouse for a while yesterday and today and it is like walking into spring in the middle of winter. I really didn't want to leave it and come back into the house. Dawn...See MoreHoop greenhouse question...
Comments (3)I live in north central Sask Canada. We put up a 16x24 double poly greenhouse two years ago and we get lots of snow. The fans are running all year, once in the winter, when the fans stopped because of power outages the snow accumulated between the hoops sagging the plastic because it did not all slide off. This put pressure not just on the ridges but on the plastic itself. You would be alright in rain, but in the event of freezing rain or the odd heavy snow it would help to have them running. Could you turn them on when snow is expected?...See More2016 Harbor Freight Greenhouse question about base assembly.
Comments (7)Hi Margaret, You have the same model 10x12 Harbor Freight greenhouse that I do. Ours has been up for almost 9 years now. I totally agree with kudzu9; it needs to be anchored to the ground. I know the Harbor Freight manual still indicates you can set the frame on the ground and fill it with gravel, but my latest version of the manual also has a page up front, with bold type, that says "IMPORTANT - Wind conditions vary from site to site...may affect practicality of anchoring methods substantially...it is always your responsibility to ensure that the greenhouse is properly anchored...etc." This is because many Harbor Freight greenhouse owners have had their completed structures roll across the yard and be destroyed...when they are not anchored. Here is a link to the blog we did about building our HF greenhouse. There's a section on how we did our foundation. As you've noticed by watching videos, there are many ways to tackle anchoring the base...but it really must be securely anchored. Building our Harbor Freight 10x12 Greenhouse The other thing the manual doesn't tell you is that the panels must be attached to the frame more securely than the kit specifies. If you browse Harbor Freight threads in the archives here, you will also find threads about greenhouses that were destroyed when one or two of the panels blew out, in a wind. If the wind is strong enough, it can then rush inside the structure and bend the soft aluminum frame so it's not salvageable. I suggest using extra clips (order them by calling the toll free HF number) and by using one or two screws in each panel, going into the aluminum frame. The above blog shows how we did that, too. Some people prefer to caulk their panels in place, but I never did because I like the ability to remove and replace the panels easily. So Goal One is to anchor the structure well, and Goal Two is to anchor the panels to the structure well. When we built our kit, the 10x12 was fairly new, and there were a lot of Gardenweb forum members building them. So, there were lots of us brainstorming solutions about how to strengthen the kit. I gathered many of the great ideas from this group and put them in our blog. I really suggest reading it, because I want you to have only happy adventures with your greenhouse! There are a number of modifications that will help it to be safer and stronger. None of them are expensive, they just take a bit of time. Treated wood is better than untreated for a foundation, especially if your climate has even average moisture. Some folks have even built masonry foundations for these greenhouses. It does need to be flat, though, as you'll have problems with the rest of the build if you don't get the foundation flat and the initial pieces put together in a way that is square and plumb. My advice is to take your time. If you need to, maybe consider asking a friend (or hiring one?) to help you with the foundation. I hope this helps a bit. Please feel free to post back, or contact me directly if I can be of more help!...See MoreGreenhouse question
Comments (14)Plants that were outside likely were hardened off to the cold. Plants in a greenhouse, especially following a warm autumn, might not have been as hardened off to the cold as much as the plants outside were. Wind can cause windburn, of course, but plants that have been outside already have been exposed to all kinds of wind too, unless they were newly moved from indoors to outdoors or newly sprouted, so they've developed a hardening to the wind as well. Hardening off plants to wind is just as important as hardening them off to ever-increasing amount of sunlight and is one reason a lot of us run a fan in the room where we raise seedlings indoors under lights and why we run a fan in the greenhouse. If his plants were flooding wet, that didn't help them either. Overwatered plants can be as vulnerable as underwatered plants. Like Amy, I always water in advance of a big cold front, but I don't flood them. I always aim for only moist soil, never wet. If he is continually keeping the plants too wet, that also leaves them less healthy so more prone to handle extreme heat or extreme cold badly. And, if he constantly underwaters and then leaves the greenhouse completely closed up without good air flow, he's just creating ideal conditions for fungal root rot and other diseases to develop. Yesterday, I watered the tomato seedlings for the first time since the day I planted the seeds, which was December 1st. I check the soil moisture daily, and that was the first day the growing medium felt dry and the plants needed water. Three weeks indoors without watering is pretty good. Once the seedlings are older and bigger, I'll likely have to water them about once every 7-10 days. I'm not one to water overly much as it encourages diseases. I know people who mist and water seedlings constantly and then are dismayed when the poor little plants develop damping off and die. I'm the exact opposite. I water as little as possible and dare them to die. They don't die, but they do develop good root systems as they stretch and seek moisture. Every one of us learns by doing, and what works for one person in one situation will not work for another. That's why learning by doing is so important---everyone has to figure out what works for them in their soil, their growing conditions and, especially, in their microclimate. I have high spots and low spots in my garden and some plants can survive cold nights in the high spots but not in the low spots (because warm air rises, leaving the low spots colder than the high spots). That's something I just had to learn from experience over time....See Morealabamanicole
12 years agoJackie McCarty
12 years agorhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
12 years agosundog7
12 years agoalabamanicole
12 years agorhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
12 years agoJackie McCarty
12 years agogruber
12 years agoJackie McCarty
12 years agoJackie McCarty
12 years agoalabamanicole
12 years agogruber
12 years agogruber
12 years agojcalhoun
12 years agoJackie McCarty
12 years ago
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