I am new here. I built a passive solar greenhouse from a plan I found in The Passive Solar Energy Book. All walls are solid except the south face. I poured an 18" high perimeter foundation, put in chicken wire, then large gravel, and bricked the center area. Under the shelves I placed water filled black barrels. I don't know how well this works as I have nothing to compare it to and I assume it depends on your individual climate. However, here, in the foothills of central California we get sun in the winter (T-shirt and jeans OK outside) though it gets cold as soon as the sun goes down. The GH is not finished and has openings at both ends where I plan to put in an exhaust fan and some intake louvers. Even with these unfinished openings it gets very hot. . .this month it was up to 115 degrees. I don't have the electricity ran to it yet, so leave the door open and can keep it between 90-95. I hooked up a weather sensor in the GH and have that linked to my computer and see that it rarely gets below 45 degrees at night even when it is about 30 degrees outside. Again, I am new to this and still learning what I need to know and cannot say how effective the heat sinks are. I plan to put in an exhaust fan, two intake vents (trying to decide whether to have motorized or gravity louvers for the intakes). I will put in a HAF fan system. . looking at one of those rectangle thermostatically controlled window fans with two small fans both reversible and with speed controls and set one one direction and one the other direction to get circular horizontal air flow - these used be about $40 at Lowes. I also had a spare 6" fan in a section of heating duct pipe so I installed that to duct runs to opposite corners of one side of the GH - about 6" up from the floor and then ran it up to a "T" in the center of one shelf and then and blow air into the center of the GH . . even when it is hot in the GH it is considerably cooler under the shelves - really amazingly so. Still experimenting. Everything I have planted has really grown rapidly even with a lot of heat an no fans as of now. At times in the winter it can get down to 20-25 degrees. . . this may happen a few times a season. I will have an electrical thermo controled heater to turn on when it gets that cold. Hopefully I won't ever need to heat it very often. I think my problems will be to keep it cool enough and air circulation.

I am both lurker and poster depending on what is going on in my homelife. In the past 10 years I have lost a wonderful husband after a 10month fight with cancer and was his principal caregiver since he elected to stay at home under hospice care, moved my mother in with me and again became her principal caregiver till she passed away a year ago February again under hospice care at home. Remarried while Mom was still with us and tackled extensive gardening projects with my new husband. I have been fairly active on 4 different garden-web forums as time would permit but more often than not daily life took precedence and a couple of months would go by and I realized I hadn't visited my favorite forums. This past year both my husband and I have gotten involved with a rather large group of FB gardeners many who are also crossovers from Garden Web. I have become more active with GardenWeb again and have enjoyed catching up with old 'friends' and their gardens. There is nothing like sharing with regional gardeners who can understand your climate, soils and what grows and doesn't grow. Now that my life seems to have settled down I will be around a lot more :) ..... Lynne

I like the hybridizing forum too. The subject is way over my head but I like to lurke and read the threads. I have some daylily roots I got from another member and when they sprout and flower I'm going to try to cross them. I've been trying to cross my two Amaryllis that bloomed around the same time and it looks like I finally have seed pods forming. Although I won't know the results for a couple of years.

Hi Tracy, Here's some good websites to start out with: American Hemerocallis Society Tinker's Database Charlotte's Daylily Diary Hope this helps - let me know if you need more info. Juliet