My "Greenhouse"
Hey everyone. I've been meaning to share what I'm calling my greenhouse with everyone. I built this a couple days ago and my plants seem to be taking to it well. It gets anywhere from 4-6 hours of full sun, and is increasing every day as the sun rises.
Basically, it's a low tunnel. I have 10 ft. length PVC pipe bent and a 12x20 ft. Strip of 6 mil greenhouse plastic lain over top and weighed down. This has consistently kept the greenhouse very warm during the day. For example, today we got up to about 40 here. The greenhouse was sitting at 75 while being vented ever so slightly. It's great! With the sun off this evening it's stayed around 55-60. This is plenty enough warmth for the cool season crops I'm starting right now like onions. I am hoping to get a tub, paint it black, fill it with water, and place it inside soon to provide a heat source at night. The idea is that the black will absorb the heat, heat up the large body of water mass, and then slowly release it at night when it's very cold out. I'm skeptical as to HOW well this will work with our lows being in the teens on average at this time of year, but we shall see. The nice thing is that this low tunnel is very close to the garage, so I can bring a heater out of the garage and place it inside this tunnel to run at night, plugged in inside the garage. Of course, my seedlings can always just be brought inside the garageover night as well.
I set up a small shelf inside to place seedlings on, I have aluminum foil for sun reflection and gained sun intensity. I will modify this set up, and I'll probably adjust the foil and move it around to a better place. This is the start!
Don't let the pictures deceive you. It's fairly roomy inside. I'm 5'9" and able to sit down inside very comfortably. In fact, I was inside sitting down tending to seedlings earlier. It's lovely to sit down inside for a bit with the warmth. I get to hear the birds outside, which is great in the middle of winter. I was joking earlier that I need a little hula dancer figure and a palm tree bobblehead figure next to her inside. Haha
Inside of this, I have onions and leeks only so far. I started these on January 22nd, and they seem happy. The only thing I've started at the moment is peas for leaves to eat in salads, some Rouge Grenobloise Batavian lettuce, some Rocky Top mix lettuce, some collards, some kale, Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach, and mustard greens. I probably couldn't put the greens out until early April here normally with our frequent March snows or cold lows here in the Ozarks, but I'm going to try and put out my greens in early March under cover. I'd love to be picking when most other people around here are planting! We have a 50% chance of last frost at April 22nd, and usually sometime in early to mid May is when all danger is past, so I figure I'll likely put my onions and leeks out late March once we quit going below 20 at night, weather permitting.
I will be starting many brassicas and cool weather crops later this month inside, but I'll probably hold out for warm weather crops like tomatoes until mid March. It'll be much easier to monitor temperatures by then, and our daylight hours will hit 12 about that time, which is much more ideal than our just above 10 right now for warm season crops.
what do you think?
Comments (7)
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6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoRelated Discussions
What's eating my lettuce inside my greenhouse?
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Comments (7)Hi Vladimir I've had my greenhouse for about 15 years. It's a lean-to off of my living room! The frame is made from angle iron and the cross beams are unistrut. The covering is corrugated clear panels that is sold at homedepot/lowes. Long story short last couple of years I've been growing inside the greenhouse over the summer and through the winter. I live in south jersey so i am zone 6b-7a. I have two box fans that run Constantly. I have a screen door on one side and window on the other side. It usually gets up to 110F-112F topp in summer. I have no shade cloth on the roof and my tomatoes never have a problem with the direct sunlight or heat. I do have a sprinkler that comes on automatically( cools temp a bit) and a bathroom exhaust fan that I connected to a temperature controller to pull out the extra heat. I usually do tomatoes in summer because the fans will pollinate the flowers and the deer/rabbits won't eat the plants. Cucumbers did really well last year where they actually took over the entire greenhouse and I had cucumbers into November. They just have to be pollinated by hand. any question s let me know steve...See MoreTiny jumping bug in my greenhouse
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6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years agoUser
6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years ago
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