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Greenhouse

Well, just put together some of the heat sink forms (2x12 PT). I think I'll go 4 high which should give me about 245 gallons of capacity. I'll need to dig things out a bit more tomorrow with bob and then I should be able to start filling in the dirt and putting in a couple more patches of concrete to hold the thing down on the ground. Then I can put the floor in with pavers, and THEN hopefully sunday get started on the assembly. Like any project, Proper preperation seems to be the key...
 
This is what the 'tank' will look like at 3 high. These three will all be buried in the ground, 34" deep. The last one will be 1' high on top of the ground.

FWW-5564.jpg
 
Brent Dowell said:
Not planning on really using it to grow anything, or any fish at this point. A koi pond would be an interesting feature to have out here, but I'm not sure what kind of predators it would attract. Thankfully, we don't have any raccoons...
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I've gotten pretty good mileage out of the $0.25 gold fish from the pet store (they use them as food for other critters). If you ask nicely they usually will fish out 3-4 of the prettier ones - which may not be as nice as koi but are a heck of a lot cheaper when a skunk/bird/whatever fishes them out and eats them. They do do a really good job of keeping the algae down. I'll give them a bare sprinkle of food if they've eaten everything else in the pond, otherwise they will poop the place up something awful (and fat fish are less healthy as well, or so I've heard - not really a fish guy).

A couple of plants will also help eat up the junk (especially if you add fish) and keep the oxygen levels up. You don't want to have a pond go anoxic (plants+aerator is pretty safe), the bacteria that grow in lox oxygen environments can be amazingly powerful smelling.
 
Well, Finished up this project!Talk about preparation being the biggest part of a project. Getting the base down was the biggest part of this project. I ended up putting in a few more chunks of concrete around the perimenter and bolting down the PT 4x4's to the concrete. Figured I needed to make sure it was well attached to the ground.Decided to put in pavers inside, just to make it a little nicer than gravel or whatever. Probably could have done a better job of putting the pavers in, but at least its done.Started around 9:00 this morning and wrapped up around 6:00. Did most of it alone. Sharon's help was invaluable in getting the ends put together, and in stripping off all the plastic covering the polycarbonate panels.I was worried when I was putting in the base that it seemed small, but once the walls got up I was surprised at how roomy it feels inside and how much room there seems to be on the shelves. I'm sure it's like anything else and that the space will get used but I'm pretty sure it's big enough for what we want.Still have some little things to work on in there, like putting in a shelf support over the pond.I'm also working on a high tech monitoring system that will track a bunch of variables. That might warrant a separate 'off topic' post.


Here's the pad with the pond and pavers.
FWW-4382.jpg
And here is the greenhouse, all assembled with my lovely assistant.
FWW-4388.jpg
 
Oh yeah, we got a bunch of seeds already from a local grower, so they are tailored for the area. Going to get the seeds started and once they start coming up, well, that will be their new home till we can get them in the garden..

Tomatos, squash, tomatillos, eggplants, all kinds of things...
 
Very nice job Brent and Sharon. But something is missing in those pics :) The resident inspectors are noticeably missing. ???
Just a thought but you aint going vegetarian on us are you? :)

Sure would enjoy your monitoring thread off topic or not.

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Rob Keeble said:
Very nice job Brent and Sharon. But something is missing in those pics :) The resident inspectors are noticeably missing. ???
Just a thought but you aint going vegetarian on us are you? :)

Sure would enjoy your monitoring thread off topic or not.
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The inspectors were busy sleeping all day while I worked to put up the greenhouse.

It was a very nice day, I was able to work in just a T-shirt.

There was something very peaceful about putting it together with two dogs sleeping nearby, and 20 wild horses just munching away on cheatgrass down by the road.

Funny you should mention going vegetarian. I've actually been on a kick to increase the amount of vegetables I eat by cooking vegetarian meals several times a week.

But as far as gardening, I've got farming in my blood from way back. All my ancestors were farmers and I've always loved growing things, especially things that can be eaten... In California, growing things was easy. You could start early and enjoy a long growing season.

Here, we generally have pretty mild winters, but the cold snaps in the spring just kill anything you have out. So just figuring this little green house will be a 'booster' to help us get an earlier start and to get things bigger faster...
 
Great job, that looks fantastic. I like the pavers as well, they really set it off.

Will be curious to know your thoughts on the pond after you've had it a while.

One more caution: greenhouses can get crazy hot even when its not that warm outside and if you're twice as organized as I am you're still likely to forget to open the vent sometimes. An automatic opener like this: http://www.harborfreight.com/greenhouse-window-vent-opener-92192.html can be a real plant saver.
 
Thanks Ryan! It came with one automatic opener, but the vents and the opener seem a little fragile? It did get up to about 90 in there today, with outside temps in the 50's. Once the sun went down though the differential became nearly non existent. Of course I don't have any water in the pond yet.

It was breezy today, so I was glad I put it up yesterday instead of today. It seemed to handle the winds pretty well (~20mph). Tomorrow will be a little windier, so we'll see how things go.
 
Wow i feel dump, i learn something every day on our site. I did not know of those auto opening devices. Do they simply work on expanding and contracting gas? How well do they close when needed and can a wind from the opening side yank em open?

Brent you gonna spill the beans on that monitoring unit you developed? :) You driving me crazy just thinking about it. :):)

Before you do just consider whether its not something you could license and sell. At the price point it is at would be serious competition to the Davis and other stuff out there. I am sure many greenhouse buffs that are more green fingers than techie would be most interested. Why i bet even without checking that there is a greenhouse forum out there. But then i suppose the solution will undoubtably already be out there. :(
Thats what happens when you got 300 million educated people together under one roof with a dollar currency.:)

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Rob Keeble said:
Do they simply work on expanding and contracting gas? How well do they close when needed and can a wind from the opening side yank em open?
Click to expand...

The whole vent thing seems a little flimsy to me, but it was working today. Just a little gas piston thing that opens as the temp goes up and down when it cools. If it's cool enough, it's closed. Pretty stiff and hard to move. It will be interesting to see how things hold up in the wind. I'm assuming I'll get pretty good at repairing wind damage.

Rob Keeble said:
Brent you gonna spill the beans on that monitoring unit you developed? :) You driving me crazy just thinking about it. :):)
Before you do just consider whether its not something you could license and sell. At the price point it is at would be serious competition to the Davis and other stuff out there. I am sure many greenhouse buffs that are more green fingers than techie would be most interested. Why i bet even without checking that there is a greenhouse forum out there. But then i suppose the solution will undoubtably already be out there. :(
Click to expand...

On some of the arduino programming sites I've been frequenting it seems as if everyone with a greenhouse and a yen for programming gets the idea to monitor/control aspects of the green house. The aquaponic guys are even worse.

I'm not doing anything that anyone hasn't thought of before, but I really haven't seen any flexible turnkey systems at a reasonable pricepoint out there. They may be ways of skinning the cat.

I've just been working with figuring out how to interface the components. So far I've got two different types of temperature probes working, and yesterday I soldered up a little SD Card data logger kit. Got all that working, so now it's on to working out how to hook up another couple of types of monitors and the wifi connectivity. It's going to be fairly complicated and will require a bit of work, but it's been pretty fun so far.
 
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