The Tropical Fruit Forum
Tropical Fruit => Tropical Fruit Discussion => Topic started by: Daintree on January 27, 2023, 10:41:25 AM
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So, in some of the latest discussions with Plantinyum and Tropicaltoba, it made me wonder how many folks have tropical gardens under glass, or even in their houses.
I know TropicalFruitHunters is in Ohio (still have my shirt!), we just picked up someone in Virgina, there are people in Tennessee, and I think more than one in Canada. Plantinyum is in Bulgaris. And let's not forget Iceland!!!
So let's hear it if you are a greenhouse or indoor gardener, your zone, and a little about what you grow.
If someone knows how to use YouTube (which is not me, that's for sure!) I thought maybe it would be fun if we could have virtual tours of our setups...
Cheers,
Carolyn -
Boise Idaho, 700 s.f. greenhouse, zone 6,
I grow any tropical and sub-tropical edible that I can get my hands on!
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I've had a 1725 SQFT GH in SW Texas at 4500 ft elevation for 18 years. Started out growing mostly stone fruit and citrus. That became a fig nursery business the last 7 years but now I'm going back to stone fruit with the addition of mango to spice things up. I'd like to compare my best stone fruit to good mango.
Stone fruit will be on the cool end near the wet wall and mango on the warm end near the exhaust fans. My main concern is getting enough chilling for the stone fruit while keeping it warm enough for mango. In the past chilling was easy by heating to 37-40 at night and running the evap cooler by day. I could achieve an average of 16 Utah hrs per day during chill cycle. 45 days was enough for 720 chill hrs and everything bloomed well.
My plan going forward is to heavily shade the stone fruit during chilling and put up one or more curtains between the stone fruit and mango to help keep the mango warm. Also some plans to maintain the soil as warm as possible for the mango.
I think my mango climate will be better than any place in CA. Highs will be 80s and 90s for 270-300 days a year and mostly 60s and 70s the rest of the time. Nights in the 40s about 45-60 days and 50s and 60s the rest.
My soil is a well drained loam. Everything grows very well, maybe too well. I tried a Raga puri banana once and it was so vigorous I had to take it out before it shaded out everything nearby.
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I plan on moving everything outside in the future, but for now... :)
(https://i.postimg.cc/njbvbpPV/ezgif-1-5f61508d14.gif) (https://postimg.cc/njbvbpPV)
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Hi ! I've got a little greenhouse in Vancouver Wa, zone 8b. I have a pouteria obsession after eating mamey, so I've managed to fill my greenhouse with a bunch of plants that will probably get far too large in a few years. Currently I just have a cheap plastic greenhouse from Amazon that has decimated my heating bill this winter, but I am looking to build a permanent lean-to against my house this summer. I just put 4 pradosia Brevipes seeds in pots so I'm hopeful those will sprout. Also have mamey, butter sapote, ross, ducke, P transclucida, P viridis and P venosa growing. I also have a some eugenia and plinia growing. This forum and its members have opened my eyes to just how many tropical fruits there are, and how few are available in Washington state. But we get amazing blueberries, raspberries, cherries and apples up here. (which I have growing outside of the greenhouse)
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I've had a 1725 SQFT GH in SW Texas at 4500 ft elevation for 18 years. Started out growing mostly stone fruit and citrus. That became a fig nursery business the last 7 years but now I'm going back to stone fruit with the addition of mango to spice things up. I'd like to compare my best stone fruit to good mango.
Stone fruit will be on the cool end near the wet wall and mango on the warm end near the exhaust fans. My main concern is getting enough chilling for the stone fruit while keeping it warm enough for mango. In the past chilling was easy by heating to 37-40 at night and running the evap cooler by day. I could achieve an average of 16 Utah hrs per day during chill cycle. 45 days was enough for 720 chill hrs and everything bloomed well.
My plan going forward is to heavily shade the stone fruit during chilling and put up one or more curtains between the stone fruit and mango to help keep the mango warm. Also some plans to maintain the soil as warm as possible for the mango.
I think my mango climate will be better than any place in CA. Highs will be 80s and 90s for 270-300 days a year and mostly 60s and 70s the rest of the time. Nights in the 40s about 45-60 days and 50s and 60s the rest.
My soil is a well drained loam. Everything grows very well, maybe too well. I tried a Raga puri banana once and it was so vigorous I had to take it out before it shaded out everything nearby.
That sounds like perfect growing conditions for everything. What’s your outdoor temps in summer and winter? How do u manage humidity in winter? Do you feel
Like it’s almost too Much space? I find I get overwhelmed with my tiny gh and my houseplants once I start doing summer outdoor projects.
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My advantage is lots of sunshine all year around. Any sunny day in winter it gets hot in the GH. On average it hits 92 for 6-8 hrs in winter. I'd say 90% of the days it hits 90 in the GH all winter. It's those long cold nights in the 20s and 30s that require a lot of heating. When I heat to 37-40 the heating bill is minimal, maybe $100 a month. Heating to 55-60 for the three winter months costs roughly 400 per month in a 1725 sqft GH. Outside in winter is low 60s day and near freezing at night.
I may up grade to 16 mil multiwall poly carbonate. But the cost is hard to justify. It doesn't pay for itself.
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Hi ! I've got a little greenhouse in Vancouver Wa, zone 8b. I have a pouteria obsession after eating mamey, so I've managed to fill my greenhouse with a bunch of plants that will probably get far too large in a few years. Currently I just have a cheap plastic greenhouse from Amazon that has decimated my heating bill this winter, but I am looking to build a permanent lean-to against my house this summer. I just put 4 pradosia Brevipes seeds in pots so I'm hopeful those will sprout. Also have mamey, butter sapote, ross, ducke, P transclucida, P viridis and P venosa growing. I also have a some eugenia and plinia growing. This forum and its members have opened my eyes to just how many tropical fruits there are, and how few are available in Washington state. But we get amazing blueberries, raspberries, cherries and apples up here. (which I have growing outside of the greenhouse)
Hi ! I've got a little greenhouse in Vancouver Wa, zone 8b. I have a pouteria obsession after eating mamey, so I've managed to fill my greenhouse with a bunch of plants that will probably get far too large in a few years. Currently I just have a cheap plastic greenhouse from Amazon that has decimated my heating bill this winter, but I am looking to build a permanent lean-to against my house this summer. I just put 4 pradosia Brevipes seeds in pots so I'm hopeful those will sprout. Also have mamey, butter sapote, ross, ducke, P transclucida, P viridis and P venosa growing. I also have a some eugenia and plinia growing. This forum and its members have opened my eyes to just how many tropical fruits there are, and how few are available in Washington state. But we get amazing blueberries, raspberries, cherries and apples up here. (which I have growing outside of the greenhouse)
Never tasted a Mamey, . I heard it tasted like pumpkin pie? Also I had grown persimmons for a while inside and felt they weren’t pumpkin piey enough to justify the space. be careful about the outside of your house. Mine actually sits on my roof and is also against an exterior wall and I made sure I designed it so it is fully sealed and completely separate from
The rest of my house. I found tropical fruit hunters blog after I had built mine and was lucky I was able to avoid the moisture infiltration problems.
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Our summers are about 90 by day and 60s at night. I can keep it as cool in the GH as outside.
It's not too big for me. I'll have it filled up in no time.
As for humidity I want that as low as possible for everything. Mango don't need high humidity. Low humidity greatly reduces diseases of the tree, bloom, fruit, and everything else.
My only pest issues are spider mites and scale. Those can be controlled by spraying hort oil once a month at a cost of about $8. I have a power sprayer and 15-20 gallons does the job.
The beauty of a GH is there are nearly no losses to disease, hail, wind, freezes, birds, coons etc that decimate my outdoor fruit.
Plus a GH allows good control of water which is the biggest factor in achieving high quality fruit. Deficit irrigation increases brix and flavor in both stone fruit and mango.
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Nice thread idea! I've got a 300 sq ft greenhouse that was converted from a stick-frame 1-car garage in spring 2021. Here's before:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AMWts8AW0BbWQsEK8vtatmZ5F25CWAk7WcWjgMqoH-FzHqoJ04KgqAeOTuStMe4SW86yaxZs_6H_e332Ido3ZQjLmziT-72iZ9L6M0s0FAShy42eO2ArrgIWtonWl__cv11a0Y7yCpyJr3yH_q-VQz5u-cWYSA=w800)
And soon after it was completed, after the first two avocados went in the ground:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AMWts8A5FVWDvT0dzcB6klQ-O6OPE9Rd-X0Y6EOBby256a7ZBRoTr7FH4GPXDIvzH3hkJxoF7varRG-LLOOuh8npNsrS56-F9mHwdO-rxO4CV0lk2FnRHswDNN0M_2DKurpCS5hOKU75d-yCGh7bhGAyy_e5Zw=w800)
About a year later (added a Dwarf Cavendish that spring):
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AMWts8BEj7FplokjrRz_hcBIpiEEqGS_Wc_pNQ0qa0KZDnpY2DcySWzbyRN0lWpPxLdhZyVXB5K9_jFBILekt2Ok4OsbEe2GOyIUc6mSc2x6ai_mNSht-CXX22r84gfuDU3EGQ8hU7Y3khjxiNiM0siqP4MzNA=w800)
And here's from October, the most recent photo in my greenhouse album (might be time to add a few soon!):
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AMWts8DsuBDL8BP82CWu7pvarqF4cvZCiCbfivBFQa9LZTFKkuJGl7EIcD6DHfIHId3H6JSvssA8ZPl-k0ZsWvSDTN3VIDIwT7Uk6LxyNZSKSqGsjMve3eUvll701VpQk8HCeI23jAzpuuJrLKslLSrY0BpvDg=w800)
My main purpose of the greenhouse is to grow allegedly cold-hardy avocados to produce seeds for the decentralized avocado breeding project I'm organizing. The banana will be removed this year whether it fruits or not (just getting too big), and I've also got a mandarin in the ground (TDE3/Tahoe Gold), and a two-year-old mango seedling (ataulfo), both of which are healthy but slow-growing. I'm not really keeping this warm enough for true tropicals, though.
So far, I've used a "Dr. Heater" on the lowest setting, which runs a bit more often than I'd like (I'm fine with it approaching freezing in there), so I'll probably be tweaking the heating situation before next winter. Here's what my greenhouse temperatures have looked like over the last 12 months:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AMWts8C53vq2Q0xgpqxFBK1AFccnyUqAepU5AEHxeN95eunK9LC2GrY4-sb0kwd8ROoOwoh_kUH0WGFbJAPFIzPytVCTmBlrPUkEcfNJv-TiFHowLbpaahA6-MHvVH7JILchTEpV49mM5APMFiudafsZg_OoCA=w800)
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I’m jealous of people that don’t need containers. Looks great, was it tricky to take the roof off and add the panels . What’s the soil like? Also what do u do for ventilation? Some of the temps are kinda high. There is a lot of research for university of florida and they show that if u exchange 1 air unit per minute in the inside temp will be max 4c more than outside on the sunniest day possible. With high air exchange and a misting system I can get my gh temp 6c less than outside even on the hottest day. Mind u I have a tiny greenhouse and a jet engine of an exhaust fan.
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Looking into building a climate battery greenhouse here in the next few weeks. Hope I can chime back in on this thread shortly
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Drymifolia, I like the data tracking. I probably would have figured things out faster if I had done that. What did u use for a system?
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I am Southern Ontario, Canada. I have 2 lean two structures I built against the house that function as greenhouses in winter, and during the nice months more like a four season patio as I swap the polycarbonate windows with mesh inserts.
All my plants have to be in pots because of the winters here.
I have fruited various citrus, mango, guava, Babados/Jamaican cherry, pitangutuba, jaboticaba, starfruit, sapodilla, papaya and more.
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My apartment living room is full of plants under grow lights, no room for furniture. I've been able to maintain a pest free collection. My biggest problem is tall plants that hit the ceiling.
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I’m jealous of people that don’t need containers. Looks great, was it tricky to take the roof off and add the panels . What’s the soil like? Also what do u do for ventilation? Some of the temps are kinda high. There is a lot of research for university of florida and they show that if u exchange 1 air unit per minute in the inside temp will be max 4c more than outside on the sunniest day possible. With high air exchange and a misting system I can get my gh temp 6c less than outside even on the hottest day. Mind u I have a tiny greenhouse and a jet engine of an exhaust fan.
We hired someone to do the conversion. It was their first time building a greenhouse, and they made some questionable decisions on some points, but in general I'm happy with the result. They didn't seal all the edges of the panels as well as they should have, though, so moisture and algae have found their way inside the panels. My big advice would be make sure all ends are well -sealed if you use twin-wall poly panels.
For ventilation, I have an exhaust fan in the eaves on one side, it replaces about 0.7 air volumes per minute, which usually keeps it within about 14°F (7.5°C) of the outside temperature on hot days. Here's an example, the late July heat wave with 90°F highs outside and 104°F in the greenhouse:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AMWts8CzdXIqXBGGej0psjQM9fBVfDMXHB3ZrPOvIWPX9gK-bazIPsQ99nAdDNxd_RBsjphJxfS2Elz6S15_MnnM61S1JXrredPEmLLwddhp8BiLLjugjLtMg9lZcKL0BA8k0ObKTITm3L0J8qkBCKW_R-rvtw=w700)
Drymifolia, I like the data tracking. I probably would have figured things out faster if I had done that. What did u use for a system?
I use raspberry pi computers with temperature chips wired to their GPiO pins, which upload raw temperature measurements to a web script once per minute, where they get stored in a MySQL database. The charts are displayed using the Chart.js javascript library. I'm sure there are less DIY systems available, but I enjoy a good DIY project.
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Drymifolia, I thought about doing some arduino controllers, but didn’t have the patient or brainpower to figure it out. Donu have experience with that sort of thing? Also I was wondering do u have them set as controllers of just monitoring? Also how reliable are they wrt breaking down? I’ve used a bunch of inkibirds to control my lights and humidity and they are terrible for breaking at 14-16 months and I was about ready to throw in the towel with them and try to find something new
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I have a permanent greenhouse, its construction was well documented on the citrus section of this forum some years ago as I was building it - https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=32173.0
I really like the ability to plant large trees that won't play nicely in containers directly in the dirt. However, I am happy to keep anything that will fruit in a container that way as it is nice to be able to bring everything out in the warmer months so I can clean up the greenhouse and fight the scale insects. No matter what I do they become a problem in the winter when it is crowded, but spring & summer give me a chance to reset things and get them back to a minimum.
I am growing basically everything now, with representatives from all the common fruiting plant groups discussed here with few exceptions. I try a bunch and see how they do, then pick the best and get rid of the others or condemn them to being bonsai plants. I had a ton of in-ground citrus but now I have reduced to just a few in-ground and the in-ground spots are mostly occupied by various artocarpus types and annonas. Many of the tropicals I got as small seedlings or plants a few years ago started to bloom last year but only a few have fruited so far. I'm expecting more this year.
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Drymifolia, I thought about doing some arduino controllers, but didn’t have the patient or brainpower to figure it out. Donu have experience with that sort of thing? Also I was wondering do u have them set as controllers of just monitoring? Also how reliable are they wrt breaking down? I’ve used a bunch of inkibirds to control my lights and humidity and they are terrible for breaking at 14-16 months and I was about ready to throw in the towel with them and try to find something new
I've never messed with Arduino specifically, but I've done all kinds of tinkering projects with raspberry pi. I've tried using them as a controller, but I think I'd recommend against doing "high-tech" DIY controllers for anything vital like heating and cooling. I've had reliability issues mostly resulting from user error (bugs in my code) rather than hardware failure. If you go the single-board computer route, invest in high quality microSD cards, that's going to be your main point of hardware failure.
For controlling heating, I just use the dial on my heater. For cooling, I use one of these:
https://www.thermocube.com/#thermocube
The TC-21 works reasonably well for cooling, though not perfect in the shoulder seasons when I want to keep more of the accumulated heat each day.
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Daintree, nice thread idea!
Yes I'm another grower who is stuck up north. At least for now...We'll see. Anyways right now I'm at a 20x28 greenhouse. I have lots of trees in ground or in bottomless rootmaker pots. Which lets the roots grow into the ground. Mangoes, lychee, white sapote, jaboticaba, guava, loquat, starfruit, lemon drop mangosteen, and rollinia are the trees I have in ground. Everything else is in pots.
you can check out my website and blog where I will post about what's going on over here. https://graftatree.com/blog/ (https://graftatree.com/blog/)
I grow basically everything, but mostly I like jaboticabas and stuff in the myrtle family. Also took up a passion for yangmei. Especially that they can grow without protection here. And then I like to grow stuff that tastes good, so mangoes and lychees and others for me. There's a lot of stuff I've culled cause the fruit tasted bad. Feel free to ask any question or make comments.
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I've got a few different growing situations going for my zone7a climate. I have a heated greenhouse with dragonfruit that has grown thru the pot into the ground. During the summer i use it just as a nursery to get seeds and seedlings started but in the winter all my more subtropicals/anything that can take into the 30s are packed in there. In there will be all my citrus, avocado, jaboticaba, jamun, guavas, macadamia, eugenias, olive, lucuma, bird of paradise and others +succulents. For anything that needs just another layer of protection i have a hoop house where i use frost cloth and thermal mass to keep some in-ground citrus, pineapple guava, figs, pomegranate, tea, and arbutus. Everything else that is more tropical goes indoor under grow lights; soursop, pouteria, syzygium, jackfruit, inga, sapodilla, cacao, and a bunch of other stuff
(https://i.postimg.cc/n9Vp5jc6/IMG-3670.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/n9Vp5jc6)
(https://i.postimg.cc/w3F6NVwH/IMG-4678.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/w3F6NVwH)
(https://i.postimg.cc/GH2bxyfD/IMG-5256.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/GH2bxyfD)
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What fun! I wish I could grow things in the ground, but I cant even dig down a few inches because of massive maple tree roots all through the yard. That being said, I have several plants that have put roots through the bottoms of their pots and and are tunneling their way to freedom. My vanilla vines have a mat of aeirial roots that have gone to ground that are at least three feet in diameter.
I love everyone's pics of their setups, and boy am I jealous of the 1700 sf one in Texas! I'd have it filled in no time! I just can't resist trying new things.
Love the converted garage idea too!
I used to have tropicals in the house, and watering took so long, mostly because I couldn't get to the back of the room without moving pots.
There are so many problems, and advantages, that are specific to greenhouses, container growing, and indoor cultivation!
Cheers, Carolyn
PS - if anybody is ever near Boise Idaho, give a shout and you'll get a greenhouse tour! Maybe I'll even have a batch of ripe bananas.
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How high are the energy costs to heat these? Might end up in Minnesota at some point and would want to do this.
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Really neat setups everyone.
Has anyone created a passive solar style greenhouse, requiring little to no extra energy input?
Something using a similar concept to this:
https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2023-01-25/this-maine-home-can-stay-70-degrees-without-a-furnace-even-when-its-freezing-outside
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..
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How high are the energy costs to heat these? Might end up in Minnesota at some point and would want to do this.
I'd guess that would be quite a bit more to heat a greenhouse in Minnesota vs here in Seattle. I use the "Dr. Heater" 1.5kw greenhouse heater on the lowest setting, which seems to turn on/off (saw pattern) when the outside temperatures are in the low 40s and then it runs continuously when the outside temperatures fall to around freezing or just below. Here's an example chart showing two brief periods of continuous heating (red arrows) on a mildly freezing night last week:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AMWts8A6Fk-yN98GA8qGkFz7eSR0E5qgKfRH6MUcgmaHhOfOrgkM7n2ajL61_ZJhXj_61xDsjVvO0PCrSQnDdNjum5czooj0_f-bpDlTfK0dcrMHktLI6Ns5hB5jURXoAcJeJqLpX36RteRgj_t8mGAhKz3AXw=w700)
My greenhouse is still a bit drafty despite some efforts to seal up leaky bits, but the heater can hold it around 12°F above outside ambient, and I have a second heater that I plug in when really cold weather threatens. The two together seem to manage a delta of about 20°F.
For somewhere like Minnesota, I'd think you'd need a minimum of 2kW of heat for a small-to-moderate greenhouse, even if it's reasonably well-sealed, and that would probably need to run continually through the winter (~48kWh per day). Energy rates vary a lot from area to area, but that would be somewhere on the order of 1500 kWh per month. Here in Seattle, the "second block" rate (anything over 480kWh/month) is about $0.13/kWh, so that would be about $200/month for 1500kWh of heating.
My heater ends up costing about $50 to $80 per month for most of the winter, though it can be hard to tease out the exact cost since our house heating (heat pump) also increases a bit when it's cold.
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In Winnipeg, just north of you for a 225 sqft (very well insulated attached greenhouse) costs up to 4 dollars a day to keep ultra tropicals alive during the coldest winter months. At the university of Manitoba they built a Chinese style greenhouse that was passively heated almost stayed above freezing all winter (had hot compost piles in it). Here is the link to the paper.
https://library.csbe-scgab.ca/docs/journal/48/c0611.pdf
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Has anyone created a passive solar style greenhouse, requiring little to no extra energy input?
Something using a similar concept to this:
https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2023-01-25/this-maine-home-can-stay-70-degrees-without-a-furnace-even-when-its-freezing-outside
These passive solar designs always seem to ignore the common winter condition of "freezing, windy, cloudy, wet for days in a row" where there is no meaningful solar heating and any accumulated thermal mass is gone by the second night.
I have spent a ton of time thinking about insulation and greenhouse energy efficiency over the years. The biggest problem is that the insulative value of even the best glazing is awful when compared to something like a proper insulated wall. The only solution that makes sense to me is to have some kind of insulating blanket that can cover the greenhouse at night. Finding something that can do this while surviving the elements, wind, moisture, etc is though. It seems chinese growers would use thatch and simply roll it up manually twice a day and replace it as needed. Having something automated and long lasting will be expensive and heavy, something like polyurethane rolls on a spool.
The floor of a greenhouse is a massive heat sink, too, so you have to insulate the foundation perimeter and possibly the floor
If you accept that the insulation will be poor and focus on cheap energy things like geothermal are options. Or solar-heating a large mass of water and extracting the heat at night.
At some point if you have zero air exchange it will harm the plants and you'll get mold. Once you start air exchanging your heating efficiency drops drastically. Things like heat recovery ventilators exist but more expense and complication there.
I am fortunate enough to have piped natural gas which is dirt cheap. It costs me around $100 per month to heat my greenhouse in winter. If I used electric it would probably be triple that, and propane some where in between.
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In Winnipeg, just north of you for a 225 sqft (very well insulated attached greenhouse) costs up to 4 dollars a day to keep ultra tropicals alive during the coldest winter months. At the university of Manitoba they built a Chinese style greenhouse that was passively heated almost stayed above freezing all winter (had hot compost piles in it). Here is the link to the paper.
https://library.csbe-scgab.ca/docs/journal/48/c0611.pdf
Yup, I was not aware of this greenhouse design until after I spent years thinking about it and came up with basically the exact same design on my own that it turns out the Chinese have been using for a long time! That is re-assuring to me that it is the right choice
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here's the diagram from that article of the chinese greenhouse design
(https://i.imgur.com/4LA5NRv.png)
I had built a model of a design I want to try that is frameless... I am thinking the arch effect of a 8-12mm thick bent plastic glazing panel might be strong enough on its own
(https://i.imgur.com/jxP0D90.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/uXKiVDN.jpg)
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Brian u are spot on about multiple cold cloudy days. When that study was done winnipeg was know for cold clear skies in winter (-40). The past couple of years the winters are milder, which is nice, but the sun is gone too. This week is really the first time we’ve had sun for 2 months.
I used to put aluminum backed styrofoam panels on 40% of my glazing to try and capture heat and help contain reflected light. It did help with the heating but it still decreased the available light and I had bunch of citrus dieback as dark hot rooms are bad for plants.
Also cool idea, it’s nice to see I’m not the only one who makes models and tries to invent things.
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Btw when doing research for my zone 3 greenhouse I did find company that offers glazing with quintuple panes (yep 5). I wonder how much light get through?
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Btw when doing research for my zone 3 greenhouse I did find company that offers glazing with quintuple panes (yep 5). I wonder how much light get through?
I bet it is pretty poor. I think last time I looked even 3-ply seemed not worthwhile. That far north you might be best off with flat dual-pane insulated glass perpendicular to the winter sun angle (nearly vertical!)
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Yeah, heat is the big thing with greenhouses! I tried the water barrels, but the second the sun quits hitting them they would release their heat, and by 11:00 pm I was heating the air AND the water, since water always equalizes to the air temp.
We too have cheap natural gas here. My 700 sf greenhouse costs $42 per month to heat. However, we are on a year-round payment system, so even in the summer with the furnace off it is $42. Not complaining though!
I have fiddled with so many things for heat - thermal blankets that you have to put on every night and then get shredded by the wind and used as nesting material by squirrels; hot composting, which took up half the greenhouse and required a lot of "food" and babysitting; the above-mentioned barrels; bubble wrap which filled with water, turned green then fell down; those emergency mylar blankets on the north wall; heating my greenhouse pond to hot-tub temp with a homemade heater that shocked the sh1t out of me, and probably some other things I have blocked from my mind.
Insulating the foundation, a thick layer of bark on the floor (gravel froze my bare feet at night and baked them in the daytime so I knew it was having the same effect on potted plant roots), and pay the gas bill has been the best thing for me. Funny thing, we actually inherited a natural gas well in Texas, and payments from that offset about half of the heat bill!
Cooling in the summer is way easier. Though we are at 2800 ft and have no clouds in the summer, I have found that a good coating of shade paint, a mister system and massive airflow works better than shade cloth. The cloth helped shade it, but the plants hated it. Just sat there and stared at me all summer, refusing to bloom.
Cheers, Carolyn
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Brian,
Im sure you’re right. I’ve double double pane low e glass, and with cleaning the inside glass 2x year, i usually loose 30% of sunlight according to my light meter (umol/m not lumens). It’s maxes out just over 1000umol even during the winter (but I try to have high co2 levels (2-3x atmospheric) so I want as much light as possible).
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One nice thing about covering the greenhouse at night is you can run grow light without the light escaping (and bothering nearby animals & neighbors). I live in a fairly dense suburban area so I don't run grow lights, but if I could get a solution to cover the greenhouse glazing at night I would
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Carolyn, you have birds and a pond! What’s in your pond?
Cherimoya dude, There is a nursery called “sage gardens” here just outside the city. They keep at it a 15c in winter and he uses geothermal (the ground freezes to 8ft here) He is all into organically as well, take a look at their website. He’s a pretty nice guy and I’m sure if u have his shop a call he’d let u know how week it works.
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I wish I could afford some fancy automated covering system!
I have seen some in greenhouse catalogues.
And yeah, my previous back fence neighbors did complain about light from my greenhouse. However, she also said that my greenhouse plants were causing her allergies, so...
We have geothermal in parts of Boise, but not where we live. That would be so cool!
So, my greenhouse pond is about a hundred gallons, and I mostly use it for watering plants in the winter. Even with heat tape, the hose water is too cold. So I heat the pond with a 500 watt aquarium heater so my ultra-tropicals don't get cold feet when I water them. I have tried goldfish and tilapia in the pond, but since I use it for watering, the fish don't like getting fresh cold water all the time. Plus, being a lazy fertilizer, I tend to just put MiracleGro in the pond and water/fertilize at the same time using a sump pump. So I kept having to catch the fish, put them in a bucket, hose out the pond when I was done watering, etc. Got old real fast! I would love to put in a second pond just for fish, if I can figure out where to put it.
Carolyn
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Brian, I’m In the middle of the city and I run my 1800watt leds them from 7:15 am to 8:15 pm (when it is cloudy/dark). it good for the plants, but more for the predatory insects that go dormant when the sun is <12h. We only get 6 hours of sun in the winter so the gh glows from About 4:30 pm onwards. I’ve asked around and no one seems to mind, I even catch people hanging outside and just looking at the plants in the winter. Also no one has thrown rocks at it yet.
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Has anyone created a passive solar style greenhouse, requiring little to no extra energy input?
Something using a similar concept to this:
https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2023-01-25/this-maine-home-can-stay-70-degrees-without-a-furnace-even-when-its-freezing-outside
These passive solar designs always seem to ignore the common winter condition of "freezing, windy, cloudy, wet for days in a row" where there is no meaningful solar heating and any accumulated thermal mass is gone by the second night.
These passive solar house designs also always seem to ignore aesthetics with most being ugly as hell, the best only being bland, but all being incongruous to neighborhoods and landscapes (like a black, badly-proportioned house being plopped in the Maine countryside). I am also not enamored with their potential for irreparable or hard-to-repair age-related failures; frankly, I do not believe these houses will age well. Like most things constructed today, they are made seemingly to fail and be replaced. Such a throwaway mindset negates the positive environmental impact of their low energy consumption by building in a requirement to replace items that have high embodied energy.
Here is an example I cited when I worked in historic preservation. Vinyl replacement windows are very popular, touted as a way to save both the environment and money. The Obama administration attached all sorts of tax credits to their installation for that reason. Yet, they are a scourge, particularly to historic buildings, damaging to a building's historic fabric, the environment, and the building owner's pocketbook. I will not bore everyone with all the details, but one Kentucky study showed that it took between 30 and 45 years to recoup the initial expenditure of industry standard replacement window installation, while the windows themselves maintained their optimal energy savings for only 10 years, after which time their energy usage, air leakage, and insulating quality were no different in performance than historic wood windows in average condition. The difference between those replacement windows and the historic ones they replace, is that historic windows in suboptimal condition can be reglazed and repaired, often onsite and with only a modicum of skill and energy expenditure. Their replacements themselves have to be either completely replaced or sent back to the factory for repair once they are no longer functioning properly.
So, as you may be able to tell, I am not going to be demolishing my house and replacing it with the latest and greatest and greenest and trendiest. I will be sticking with things more tried and true because, as Neil Young sang, "Old ways comin' through again."
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Does anyone have a comprehensive set up similar to this seller?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGxy-abbKWk
My plan is to pay the design fee and buy a 24' x 48' hoop house from Grower's solution
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W. makes a lot of great points! Devil's advocate: it's clean energy that is accessible, and solar panel prices keep plummeting. If it's your only source of energy it's risky but if you are treating it like a discount on your energy bill I think solar panels are becoming more much worthwhile.
The transparent solar panel technology is super exciting to me, someone made solar panels that only filter green light leaving plants directly over the solar panels to grow as if they were in full sun. Truly amazing stuff will get distilled down and made public accessible, all we have to do wait. Imagine a field that pays for its own upkeep
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Problem with the green filter is u won’t want any plants if they are just grey instead of green.
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Problem with the green filter is u won’t want any plants if they are just grey instead of green.
I'm confused; why would that kill the plant?
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I had built a model of a design I want to try that is frameless... I am thinking the arch effect of a 8-12mm thick bent plastic glazing panel might be strong enough on its own
The kind I used (Palram Sunlite 8mm twin wall) has really thorough instructions on the bending radius and weight capacity (snow load) for arched installations:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AMWts8BsVlNUyqj3ZK_yyYsAk90MXaBpBGsRnkMSKMphZf2J7tWQ0v8ojMsdkrt3OPD_Jmvzm1YdcoEkTl-AeI0fDXxX_EZOQaK73XQfUGSAUX8PYbpSCydzB_9rhnBAJLddeymRRkf096xur-c7fX1iDiJEQA=w800)
Source:
https://palram.canto.global/direct/document/nibdh82n615vv53iumsrcgfc33/_tGOM1Av8_kZfcqyy8lRLcEwFBM/original?content-type=application%2Fpdf&name=SUNLITE+Technical+%26+Installation+Guide.pdf
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Sorry Tru, was trying to be funny, but have tough time conveying that in text. The plants would be fine (they’d absorb all the non green spectra of light like they always do), but because the green light had been filtered the green light would not longer be reflected on to your retina after it hits the plants…so the plants wouldn’t appear green anymore.
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Sorry Tru, was trying to be funny, but have tough time conveying that in text. The plants would be fine (they’d absorb all the non green spectra of light like they always do), but because the green light had been filtered the green light would not longer be reflected on to your retina after it hits the plants…so the plants wouldn’t appear green anymore.
No you're good it just went over my head lol but wow never even thought about that! too bad I'm ridiculously colorblind already 😅
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drymifolia, yes I have seen the bending and loading guidelines but I can't find anything relevant to a frameless structure. My plan is to simply order some long panels in varying thicknesses, bend them to their limit, and pile weight up on them and see how they deform. If they can handle a reasonable snow load then I'll just try whichever thickness has a bend radius that results in the desired greenhouse depth! A minimal frame might still be needed, but I am fairly sure purlins can be avoided this way which makes it much easier to clean and mount curtains for insulation on interior.
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Brian, seems brilliant. Like a more durable hoop house. Are u thinking about using the osteo only in winter?
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I'm looking for some land near my house for sale that I can build greenhouses on. Right now I can't really add more because I am under suburban zoning rules. Once I have land I'll try a bunch of designs and see how they work out.
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I have been an indoor grower for like 5- 10 years since i started to maniacally collect whatever tropical fruit species i could get my hands on. Here in zone 6- 7 at 830 m above sea level, growing tropical stuff is hard, althought i have a greenhouse now i still have the house chock-full with plants, placed near the brightest windows. They really hate it in winter for alot of reasons, lack of light being the major one.
I will say that the ones that are in the greenhouse / inground are doing fantastic. I see most people here that have greenhauses are having their plants stay in there potted. I hardly have anything potted in the gh, only a few plants that will go out in summer. I hate having potted stuff in there since i made it with the solo reason and idea of everithing thats inside to be planted inground.
The walls are 20cm thick,60-80 cm deep into the ground on south and west side, and around 40cm on the north and east sides where i have it incorporated into the pathway. The walls
have 5cm thick styrofoam on both sides. All this was with the idea of keeping the internal soil isolated from the cold soil outside.
Construction is a standart greenhouse one with square metal
pipes 2 cm width, 1mm thick, galvanized. The policarbonate is 4 mm thick . Its ment to sustain a 80 kg snow load per square meter(its 3 on 4 m), thats what i remember from the instruction list. Snow hardly ever persists on the structure, the form combined with the warmth that comes from below quicly melts and slides it off. On the outside of the policarbonate i have 1 sheet of big balloon bubble wrap, on top of which i have 1 layer of clear nylon. Those 2 additional layers ive attached to the structure via the same screws that are supporting the policarbonate.ive NEVER had a problem with it blowing off , the way ive fixed it is keeping the layers nice and tight on top of each other. Yes, water gets between the layers at places, also inside the bubble wrap, but ive never had it green up or get dirty becouse of this. Green algae i have a lot of on the inside of the greenhouse, mainly on the walls.
Heating- last year i was heating with a wood stove, what a horrible experience that was, dont reccomend, although i pilled my plants trought winter fine i needed to stay till late evening to set the fire so it would last the night. I also almost lit the greenhouse on fire on several occasions, on which the chimney got fire, as i said, dont reccomend! This year i made a radiator heating system, i dug a 20 meter long, 60 cm wide, 80 cm deep canal for the pipes that cary the water from our fire place. Did the digging myself and at one point was questioning my existance, now im real happy i did it though as i knew the alternative was nasty aff. The inground pipes also were insolated with a very thick 20+ cm stirofoam on every side, filled the crevices with fixing foam.
I have 3 radiators, 1 140cm by 60cm and 2 60 by 80 cm. They are sufficient at this point , succesfully keep the inside 15 to 20 c at -7c outside temp.
The 2 barrels i use for wattering, i fill them with water from my ponds, in a matter of a day the water is warm and ready for use, they also add a little of a buffer heat as they are heated up by the radiator.
(https://i.postimg.cc/RJBZ8CbK/20230129-154539.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/RJBZ8CbK)
(https://i.postimg.cc/DSjmZT83/20230129-154543.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/DSjmZT83)
(https://i.postimg.cc/3yzRXFXL/20230129-154549.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/3yzRXFXL)
(https://i.postimg.cc/DJszB457/20230129-154610.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/DJszB457)
(https://i.postimg.cc/v14TxNVg/20230129-154704.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/v14TxNVg)
(https://i.postimg.cc/QHqH25Dt/20230129-154755.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/QHqH25Dt)
(https://i.postimg.cc/VJLdm6sF/20230129-154824.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/VJLdm6sF)
(https://i.postimg.cc/crWvkhV2/20230129-155340.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/crWvkhV2)
(https://i.postimg.cc/xqMkPhFL/20230129-185156.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/xqMkPhFL)
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Plantinyum, chimney fires are scary, were your babies all ok? How far down does your ground freeze? Could u dig deep around the periphery and place tubes for an earth battery air exchange? I have no experience with this, and have now idea what happens if the water table is high.
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Plantinyum, chimney fires are scary, were your babies all ok? How far down does your ground freeze? Could u dig deep around the periphery and place tubes for an earth battery air exchange? I have no experience with this, and have now idea what happens if the water table is high.
Well the times where it got fire i was there and was shooting some water on it on the outside, which didnt really help anything. On the inside the metal chimney would get all yewolly- orange, hot as hell, of course it would burn and dessicate all livving things around it.
Our ground rarely freezes lately, we are yet to have it freeze this winter. I can do the pipe earth battery thing, but i dont really need it now, if i want to have a warmer temp inside i can just add an additional radiator ,which i already have. Will have to disterb alot of plant roots too, in my case now, when i have a good heating system, i wouldn't do it.
The water table here is quite low i think, ive never hit a standing water anywhere. It is a seasonal thing probably.
Yes such tubes into the ground would fill with water ,to where the water table is. People do wells this way.