When I built the Cloudyhouse, I covered it with clear polyethylene film, intending to replace it annually due to it not being UV resistant. The covering was put on at the end of March;
unfortunately, by the beginning of July it looked like this :
So, I sprang for a dozen sheets of corrugated polycarbonate that is supposed to be UV resistant. In the process, new framing members had to be installed. It now looks like this :
No longer a cloudyhouse is it. It still needs some weatherstripping added, and then some clear silicone caulk. There are still some peppers inside that are ripening (slowly), and I need to plant one last batch of lettuce to see if I can have some greens until Christmas. As cold as it has been, though, I have my doubts. Maybe I can start onions and cabbages in February -- we'll see!
After a Decade
6 years ago
I dug 3 pepper plants ou of the garden and brought them inside today so that I can have peppers until Christmas - or even later. I'm thinking of planting some flowers inside, too; just because I'm already giving myself pep talks to keep the winter 'blahs' at bay.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed spending time with you and mom yesterday. Thanks for dinner :)
Bek
It's beautiful. You did a very good job! Lilly
ReplyDeleteNice greenhouse Jimmy. Keep it warm and watch your lettuce grow all winter.
ReplyDeleteIt looks fantastic! Is it staying warm? Do you think you get better performance from clear plastic, or would the solar heat gain from a darker tinted panel be better? Would the trade-off for increased temperature justify the loss of spectral bandwidth?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nony. I have a thermometer inside but I leave for work too early in the morning to want to run out there and check the temp at that time. During the day it seems to stay warm enough. Darkening the skin would tend to make the plants struggle for light; the primary reason for building the thing in the first place was to give my seedlings a place to grow in full sunlight. From looking at it, it does not seem to be blocking the visible spectrum at all, and I don't think it is blocking IR.
ReplyDeleteOne of those projects for the future (if I could retire right now and live another lifetime, I would not have enough years left for all the projects I'd like to do!!) would be a remote sending unit to a dedicated CPU (one of my spare CoCo 2's would do the trick nicely) to track conditions inside the greenhouse. Of course, that would be an outgrowth of the project to plant sensors in the beehive frame foundation, which would allow me to track movement of the queen and her cluster all winter.
Ah, well. Too many ideas, not enough time.