Green house

Darren Wright

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Springfield, Missouri
I've been considering building a green house in the spring. I've seen several folks recycle old windows to build them, but I think this is one of my favorites so far...
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The ReStore had a contest going on in the spring for creative uses of recycled materials, here are the rest of the pics...

https://picasaweb.google.com/118003...toContest?feat=flashalbum#5621497438118527650
 
That one looks great. I'd really like to get one up to help with our short growing season out here.

I'm thinking more along the lines of just one slanted wall of glass, with a big cinderblock type of heat sink on the north side to pick up the heat during the day. Haven't seen too many designs for that though.
 
Did a small hoop house one year. If I don't get a real greenhouse built, I'm thinking we'll do just a little bigger hoop house and see if we can't cover at least 4 of our 4x8 raised beds.
 
Did a small hoop house one year. If I don't get a real greenhouse built, I'm thinking we'll do just a little bigger hoop house and see if we can't cover at least 4 of our 4x8 raised beds.

I did the small hoop houses this year and they worked great, so I just ordered the tube bender to do the larger hoop house. I like the temporary nature of the hoop houses, but not the cost of the plastic covering. I'm afraid a more permanent looking structure would get me in trouble with the county. This site got me started:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/Assets/Information/HighTunnelBendermanual.pdf

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I did the small hoop houses this year and they worked great, so I just ordered the tube bender to do the larger hoop house. I like the temporary nature of the hoop houses, but not the cost of the plastic covering. I'm afraid a more permanent looking structure would get me in trouble with the county. This site got me started:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/Assets/Information/HighTunnelBendermanual.pdf

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I'm liking the looks of that a lot... I'd still like a permanent structure of some sort, but that looks like it has a higher chance of actually getting built...

Thanks Ted!
 
I'd still like a permanent structure of some sort,

Brent,

I'm not sure you'd be happy with the growing conditions in one of those. They're fine for extending a season a few weeks on either end, but for serious greenhouse stuff they leave a lot to be desired. You couldn't, for example, produce winter vegetables.

For that, you need double walls, and wood makes it easy. Build arches out of treated 2x4s, and use the same film they're using, but inside and out. If you have a pond inside as a heat sink, or even a couple barrels of water, you can heat the whole thing over night with just a candle, even in winter. I did that in middle tennessee, where winters are worse than yours.

There's no reason you can't have fresh tomatoes year round, or just about anything you can think to grow. ;) And it'll last for years. Mine lasted until a tornado dropped a giant hackberry tree on it... :doh:

Thanks,

Bill
 
bill how does a candle make a green house warm enough to grow in the winter with just a couple barrels of water ??? in my parts those barrels would be frozen by the second night for sure??
 
...I'm not sure you'd be happy with the growing conditions in one of those. They're fine for extending a season a few weeks on either end, but for serious greenhouse stuff they leave a lot to be desired. You couldn't, for example, produce winter vegetables....
Point well taken Bill. I plan on using tunnels within tunnels to extend my season. Here in coastal Virginia (zone 7c) I can usually overwinter greens like Kale and Swiss Chard without much cover. Last year I tried Beets and Carrots with no luck. I'm thinking that by using some of the tunnel within tunnel techniques that I can grow later and plant sooner, with only a month or so of really bad temperatures. I ought to be able to do some fall crops and not have them wiped out by a few bad frosts. It's worth a try...at not a lot of cost.

http://www.uvm.edu/sustainableagriculture/Documents/HighTunnels.pdf
 
Ted thanks for that link. Real interesting manual.

I had a friend in SA that grew cucumbers in a unit like that. He did it kinda hydroponically with a drip system and growing in sawdust filled bags.

Johannesburg is situated at 6000 ft above sea level and in winter it can get pretty cold so he had a blower and anthracite furnace that was linked in via a small plc. Plants were kept nice and cozy through the night. Of couse no snow so quiet different to NA.

I have never looked around here but are fibre glass corrugated sheets available here Larry?? Dont know how if they were they would stand up in snow but how much snow would collect on a curve like that. I have no idea but i have seen many plastic film covered ones here in tatters.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
 
Brent here's one that my bro built on the side of his house. All the glass was recycled from jobs over the years. Matter a fact all the windows in the house were off job sites also.
Darren when i clicked on your post, my wife had a fit.:rofl: Now she wants me to make her one just like that.
 

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Darren when i clicked on your post, my wife had a fit.:rofl: Now she wants me to make her one just like that.

Oh, You're not alone, I sent it to my wife as well :doh: and when compared to the tunnel, the tunnel is lacking a little luster. :rolleyes:

Here is the tunnel I meant to link to, it's made of pvc, but I like the use of the steel rings on yours Ted. It might be worth looking at combining the two designs a bit. I like the boxing of the base and the walled ends, which gives the plastic something to attach to.

http://www.hightunnels.org/ForGrowers/SitePlanning&Construction/Articles/CareyHow-toBuild.htm
 
in my parts those barrels would be frozen by the second night for sure??

Larry,

Nope. First, the walls are doubled, with four inches of trapped air between them. You'd be amazed how well that insulates. Second, all you need is a sunny day once in a while to warm the water. And you can count on some of the heat coming up from the non-frozen ground under the greenhouse. That's what the candle's for: to recirculate the air, and keep it moving. In middle tennessee, I sank the pond a couple feet deep, and a small bubbler kept the water turning over. Thank goodness, because I couldn't afford to heat it. But it never froze. The whole structure shed snow like a dream, and snow was usually followed by clear days. It could be 80 in there, when it was 10 or fifteen degrees outside. Some winter days, it was the warmest place in town. I'd go out there to drink my coffee... :thumb:

Thanks,

Bill
 
That's really interesting...

Just trying to think now if I want to enclose some of the existing raised beds or make one of those little barn style greenhouses... :huh:
 
When I was growing up, my dad was really into solar energy. He built a 2 story greenhouse onto the south side of our house. The floor was brick as was the south outside wall of the house. The wall was painted black and then we stacked 10 gallon plastic jugs 4 high against the outside wall of the house and the jugs were painted black too. In the winter the temp in there could get into the 100s and only go down into the 70s because of all the heat storage. It heated the house for the most part too with only a little need for the 100+yr old boiler in the basement. We had fresh veggies most of the year too! :D
 
i remember reading a while back, about some kids who wanted to warm up the warming shack they had near the ice rink in the back yard. what they did, was to take a dozen pop cans (or those of us here could use adult beverage cans), set them into a backer board, and built a box around it, with a hole big enough to route some dryer venting (flexible), to a small electric fan in the shack. the entire inside of the box, and the cans (except for the glass larry :rofl:), were painted flat black. i remember this worked out pretty good for them. may work for your greenhouse too, if on a slightly larger scale.
 
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