Greenhouse Winter Wonderland
When last we checked in with Mr. Greenhouse we were finishing up the structure, covering it with shade cloth, and outfitting the interior. That seems impossibly long ago, but it was only this past summer. Summer is long gone, and cold weather is here. There are two times when a greenhouse really comes in handy: keeping things cool in the summer under the shade, and keeping things warm in the winter.
Preparing for winter by removing the shade cloth and putting on plastic seemed easy enough—sure, we'll just pull off the shadecloth, roll it up, and pull the plastic over. No problem! Ahem. It was a lot of work. Especially because the weather was preparing to change, and it had been windy for several days. We waited weeks for a calm day, and eventually decided to try it on a nice morning with just a hint of breeze. It was a beautiful day.
Getting the shadecloth off, truth be told, was a cinch. Just un-clip the sides and pull it off. The next job was to pull the plastic over. We bought a large roll of plastic, 55' long and 44' wide. It's wide enough that the sides hang down to the ground to cover our tall windows. I tied a one end of rope to one corner of the plastic and the other end to a roll of duct tape, which I then tossed over the hoop frame.
Throwing the rope over the hoop frame
We pulled and pulled, and inch by inch the plastic came up over the hoops. Amazingly we had no tears. We got it centered, and started securing the clamps along the side. That's when the wind came up.
The wind came up at just the wrong time
In spite of the wind (which was not much more than a breeze, but that much plastic acts like a sail on a sailboat), we managed to get the sides clipped down and secured. All was straight, tight, and beautiful with no tears or holes.
To attach the sides we used the Tube Lock base and clip that we procured from Greenhouse Megastore. On the ends walls we used the Spring Lock base and clip. After using both I can say I highly prefer the spring locks, and I won't be using the tube locks again. The tube locks are very strong and look nice but they have a tendency to slice through the plastic if you put too much force on it. The spring locks will not harm the plastic and are extremely easy to install - just thread the spring lock into the channel of the base, and it holds everything very securely.
The sides are rolled up using a long pipe clipped on with fabric clips from FarmTek. We added a hand crank to the end of the pipe; while not absolutely necessary it makes opening and closing the sides quick and easy. On a sunny day the temperature inside can climb into the high 90s, even if the weather outside is cold, so it's important to be able to open the sides to vent the heat.
Bethany working inside our newly covered greenhouse.
Cold Weather Is Here
Now that cold weather is here we have the sides down most days. It's cold outside (at least it seems cold to us Texans), but it's nice and toasty inside. Without heat, on a cloudy day the temperature inside is usually 5-10° above the outside temp. On a sunny day it could easily be 20-40° warmer.
I've built out the inside with tables for seed starts and microgreens. We now have two separate aquaponic systems. In the photo below, you can see the four grow beds—two on the right and two on the left. The grow beds on the left are recently completed, and we're cycling the system right now - it's almost fully cycled! The ones on the right have been fully cycled for months, and are verging on becoming a jungle. We regularly have to go in and hack back the nasturtium. The tall plants that you can see growing up the frame are cherry tomatoes. Yes, it is December.
We do have many days and nights below freezing here, so we had a propane tank installed and hooked up Mr. Heater. It's just a basic 30,000 btu blue flame heater, but its best feature is that it's ventless, which means low installation cost. Last week when the temperature was below freezing for the entire week and all our outside water froze, the greenhouse was nice and warm and never got below 45° inside. While I like Mr. Heater, next year I'm hoping to look into warming the greenhouse using compost instead of propane.
We've set up a washing, cutting, & packing area in the back of the greenhouse. This is a wonderful addition because we can wash our hands right there in the greenhouse before working. It's a wonderfully convenient place to harvest microgreens, and it's easy to sanitize so that we can maintain high quality and good safety. Everything that we need to harvest and pack is right there where we need it.
Here are some of the things we have growing inside right now:
Cabbage seedlings, waiting for the spring planting
Angelica for our permaculture tree guilds and zone 1 herb gardens
Arugula in grow bed #4
Mixed microgreens: Daikon Radish, Garnet Mustard, Chinese Cabbage, Purslane, Beets, and Swiss Chard.
Our daughter's enterprising flower project: Bachelor Button, Shasta Daises, and Sweet Williams.
Raft Bed Construction
Our next project is raft beds for the aquaponic system, also known as deep water culture (DWC). Water will drain out of the gravel media grow beds, where it is filtered by the media, plant roots, and the nitrification process. Nitrification is the heart and soul of our system and what makes aquaponics work. That's a topic for another blog post.
The raft beds are basically constructed like a deck, and then I'll add strong sides and line it with Dura Skrim. We'll then float "rafts" that will support the plants on the surface of the water. The plant roots hang down into the water and draw nutrients up from the water. We expect to be able to harvest many dozen heads of lettuce each week from this system.
The media beds are plumbed so that they can drain either directly into the fish tank, or out into the raft bed.
Here is a picture of our fish tank, showing the drain from the grow beds.
All a lot of work! And ongoing. We're never short of things to do. But the end is nigh. After the raft bed is complete we plan to get good at growing greens, work on our consistency and quality, and reap the rewards of our labor for a while.
Then, on to the next greenhouse!
Thanks for reading. I will leave you with this, our aquaponic grow bed from an earthworm's point of view:
Arugula from our earthworms' point of view