Gorgeous and excellent job. I think making our oasis is very valuable and landscaping and that wonderful natural feel is something that is hard to replicate imagine or value. I definitely will add my organic orchard and vegetable garden as part of the sale price of my house (as well as high quality non toxic furnishes) and while it may narrow the amount of people who will pay more for your house but the people who are looking to buy something established will be looking harder and willing to pay for your hard work many times.
It seems like we have people on here who joined just because they bought a house with a bunch of fruit trees already and did not know how much they loved it until they got (or didnât) get fruit.
I would love to do citrus, but you can get such good varieties at the store that I am not sure if it is worth it. Any recommendations? I love sumo and cara cara.
There are a lot of advantages to having a greenhouse and a lot of work required to understand how to run one right. Look on Ebay for âball red bookâ about greenhouse growing. It is worth having a recently printed copy.
The first thing I had to learn was about the âskin effectâ. When a cold wind blows across a greenhouse, the moving air will cool down the temperature just inside the plastic/glass layer of the greenhouse a few degrees lower than the outside air temperature. This layer of cold air will flow down next to the plastic to floor level, then across whatever plants are there, then gradually warm up enough to rise again and repeat the cycle. Guess how cold the plants can get? On a windy 32 degree night, the inside of the greenhouse can go down to 25 degrees. You didnât expect that did you?
This can be dealt with 3 or 4 different ways. One is to put a fan in the greenhouse to keep air circulating which prevents the cold layer from forming. Another is to use a combination heater and fan which both heats the air and prevents the cold air layer from forming. Some greenhouses include a third option which is to put an insulating layer over the greenhouse so that warm inner air is maintained.
Right now we are running 2 heaters that have fans built in. It seems to maintain the temperature pretty well, we have had a couple nights in the 20âs already. These heaters are nice because they have a setting to maintain the fans on even when the heaters shut off. Going to be expensive for sure. I did some rough math, I have 2 heaters on their highest setting (2.8 kW) which conservatively are actually producing heat 12 hours a day. Energy here in Idaho cost about 9 cents per kWh. Lets say 30 days in a typical month. .09 x 2.8 x 12 x 30 x 2 = about $180 dollars a month! Now, that is being conservative because both heater rarely run simultaneously, but still. I think $100 to $120 of added energy cost is likely. Thanks for the tip, I will check out that book.
Sure you arenât talking about the radiation to outer space on cold nights? On a still night free from wind and cloud cover the earth radiates heat to outer space. The effect is ice can form when ambient temperature is greater than freezing. BTW heat by conduction or convection flows from hot to cold. A cold wind of 32F canât cool anything below 32F.
No, this is the skin effect which applies to a greenhouse. It is a problem only when the wind blows on a cool night. The moving air reduces the temperature just inside the layer of plastic of a greenhouse a few degrees below the measured outside temperature. I have gone out to my greenhouse many a night at 2:00 a.m. to stoke up the fire and watched as that layer of cold air swept down and over the plants next to the side of the greenhouse. I learned hard lessons about protecting plants from that cold layer of air. I have also had ice 1/2 inch thick on top of my greenhouse that did no harm because I had a good fire in the wood heater and a fan blowing to keep warm air flowing across the plants.
Phill, thanks for sharing! Iâm brand new to this forum but have wanted a greenhouse for a while so been starting to think about how to go about it. Your Cedarbuilt kit looks awesome. Iâd be interested in any updates
Awesome! Too bad you didnât think to start recording it from the beginning. Oh well, maybe next time. I watched it on YouTube so that I could give you a thumbs up.
I recommend you get an improved Meyer lemon and a lime. They are shockingly productive even in a fairly small pot and unlike a lot of citrus they start producing right away. Itâs great to be able to pop out to the greenhouse whenever I need a lemon or lime. On the other side of the spectrum, my grapefruit tree is 10â tall, in a gigantic pot and despite being lush as can be and getting tons of attention it hasnât even flowered once in 10 years. Iâm about to put it out to pasture.
I will echo what other greenhouse owners have said about ventilation. Itâs impossible to have too much. My 10 x 12.5â greenhouse gets up to about 105 degrees on a sunny day when itâs below freezing outside despite having a massive vent fan and 1/4 of the roof wide open. Itâs unreal.
