New Greenhouse

Rockdoc Franz wrote: I like it. Have you considered putting in a water trough under one of the potting benches? Something in the neighborhood of 150 gallons along the north wall (if possible) will greatly stabilize the greenhouse temperature.

Yep, forgot to mention that. We found in the hoophouse that our four emergency water supply 55 gallon barrels fit very nicely under the benches, killing two birds with one stone. We will be putting some in the new greenhouse as well.

Also we hope that using a 3" thick masonry floor will add some solar mass, too.

Thanks aspenvalley for the ventilation info!!

Rockdoc do you use the water trough to water too or just to stabilize the temperature?

Aspen Valley, I was thinking of putting up a hoop house similar to your old one. Why did you decide to purchase a new greenhouse and not keep your hoop house producing this year?

Why did you call your new greenhouse a "real" greenhouse inferring your hoop house was not "real"? Was this because you're are adding misters, the brick floor, and other features that were not in your hoop house?

Thank you for your realistic advice on building and using a greenhouse. I think all aspects of gardening are a "learning experience", even in benign climates; forces us to use our brains and keep it younger.

TillerBee wrote: Aspen Valley, I was thinking of putting up a hoop house similar to your old one. Why did you decide to purchase a new greenhouse and not keep your hoop house producing this year?

Why did you call your new greenhouse a "real" greenhouse inferring your hoop house was not "real"? Was this because you're are adding misters, the brick floor, and other features that were not in your hoop house?

Thank you for your realistic advice on building and using a greenhouse. I think all aspects of gardening are a "learning experience", even in benign climates; forces us to use our brains and keep it younger.

TillerBee, the reason I refer to my new greenhouse as a "real" one, is sort of an inside joke between me and hubby. When I first talked about getting a greenhouse, quite a few years ago now, hubby was not convinced I would really get a lot of use out of it so he resisted the idea of investing in a more expensive, more permanent type structure. He said something to the effect of, "If you still are interested in greenhouse gardening in a couple of years, we'll put up a "real" one." As it turned out, the "temporary" greenhouse served us for 14 seasons. However, it did lack a few things that I really wanted. The biggest is the insulative value of twinwall. While we did heat the old hoophouse for a few winters, it was a pretty expensive proposition when the only thing between the warm inside and our Colorado winters is a single layer of poly! Although I do not plan at this time to heat the new one year round, either, I would like the option of doing so at a more reasonable cost, which the new one offers.

Another problem with the hoophouse is that it is located at quite a distance from the house and lacks running water. Every time I wanted to water I had to drag a heavy hose quite a distance. The new one is very near the house so I can pop out quickly to check on things and also it was easy to trench a line to bring running water into the greenhouse. I decided on a hard surface floor in the new one for a couple of reasons. One, in the old one where I used shreded bark mulch, there was a constant weed problem and also occasional insect problems. The same would have been true for a gravel floor. The hard floor is easy to keep clean and also adds some solar mass. Another drawback to the hoophouse is that you have to replace the cover fairly frequently, which is expensive and disruptive, especially if you have to do it in springtime when it is full of growing plants. Using it for a shorter season to grow crops in the ground should make it less of a problem as far as timing.

As I mentioned, it was because the hoophouse needed a new cover and some other renovations that we decided to add the new greenhouse this year. (That and the fact that I'd been waiting for this "real" one for 14 years!). I knew the project was going to demand a lot of time so I didn't think we could do the renovations on the old one at the same time. So we let the hoophouse go this year to work on the new one. However, we are now turning our attention to the hoophouse. We are going to make some changes to make it more sturdy and better insulated. For one thing, instead of just stretching a layer of poly covering over the hoops, hubby is going to first attach some wire fencing to help stiffen the structure and also provide a handy "trellis" for growing crops like pole beans, cucumbers, etc. Over that he is going to apply a "sandwich" made of a layer of bubble greenhouse insulation between TWO layers of poly. That should make the house much warmer and may also last a little longer than a single layer application. The mulched floor which was a bugaboo has pretty well rotted down and made some rich soil so we are going to build two long raised beds the length of the greenhouse and about 5' wide to grow crops.

All in all, I'm very excited at the possibilities of this greenhouse/hoophouse combination. I'll be able to raise seedlings very early in the heated house and then move them to the hoophouse to keep it in constant production. I've experimented in the past with hardy winter crops and hope to expand on that with the two house system.

I am sure you are going to just love your hoophouse when you get it done. They will do most anything a more expensive house will do, and of course at much less cost. But by the way you still need systems in a hoophouse for best results, at minimum ventilation fans and some kind of mister system, although it doesn't have to be elaborate. I used a simple one I bought at a big box hardware store for use as a patio cooler. About $15 or $20, you just take it out of the package, string it up to the roof of the greenhouse (i used computer cable ties) and attach to a hose and you're ready to go. Shade cloth, too. Good luck to you and have fun with it!

Edited to add: One thing that really tempted me into upgrading to this new house was the fantastic price for these greenhouse kits at Harbor Freight. We only paid a little over $600 for the kit by using a coupon we found online. I did the math and you cannot even buy the twinwall ALONE for that price. The kits do need re-engineering and some extra work and materials to make them suitable for our climate, but compared to kits costing $5000 and more for a similar sized greenhouse, it was worth it.

Thank you again AspenValley for the detailed reply. I am not purchasing a hoop house now but am considering it as one option. I am using a temporary, PVC pipe based greenhouse in my vegetable garden to prove to my husband that a greenhouse is worth the time and money. You reply is very helpful to me as many of your experiences are things I've wondered about.

My vegetable garden is also far away from my house and I run 125 feet of hose down to it in the summer to water. But I know I can't do that in cold weather when night temperatures drop below freezing.

Think, think, think. Plan, plan, plan. So much to think about but also much to dream about. Again thank you for your detailed reply.

TillerBee the one thing I would do, is make it bigger than you think you want right now. i go out to ours everyday and say to myself 'if I had MORE room" I could plant this and i could put this here and move this there and I would have more of these.. We have decided next year to add on to ours and put in heat and a drip system because we are loving it so.. So that's my suggestion.. GOOD LUCK...

MamaRama wrote: TillerBee the one thing I would do, is make it bigger than you think you want right now. i go out to ours everyday and say to myself 'if I had MORE room" I could plant this and i could put this here and move this there and I would have more of these.. We have decided next year to add on to ours and put in heat and a drip system because we are loving it so.. So that's my suggestion.. GOOD LUCK...

I second that.

Also....just came in from doing some work on the new greenhouse, putting in a strong structure for hanging baskets. If you love these as much as I do, think about where they will go. Hoophouses have few sturdy places to attach them and not much headroom. One of the reasons I choose the kit I did is that it has insane amounts of headroom. Perfect for my baskets! But it isn't a good idea to attach heavy items to the greenhouse itself, you need to think of an interior structure to take the weight. I'll post some pictures when we finish, probably by the end of this weekend.

The supports on our hoophouse are 1/2 inch conduit with supports in between the hoops. We also added 1x1 wood strips inside so that we could attach "stuff". String or chicken wire for veggies to climb. Also the drip system is attached to the center roof area (9 ft high) so that it rains when we water in there.

AspenValley - have you ever used bubble wrap in between the layers of plastic on the hoophouse? We were going to try that this winter.

We've gotten a lot of our information from "The Winter Harvest Handbook" written by Eliot Coleman.

pacamom we did add the bubble wrap this year and it seems to help with keeping it both warm and cool. so i suggest that too.. Paparama ran a metal bar from end to end in ours for the hanging baskets and also the hummer feeder. he put it in the supports that run the length of the greenhouse. It makes it so great if you are leaving town and you don't want the weather to take a toll on your baskets and when the temp. dips I take my baskets off the deck and just hang them in the greenhouse.. Papa also takes the cooled down ashes out of the wood stove in the winter and spreads it in the greenhouse seems to help the soil.. there is a book out there called the "GREENHOUSE GARDNER'S COMPANION" by shane Smith and it helps too..