digitS'
Garden Master
I had to smile at the idea of a gardener needing a fancy-smancy greenhouse in a cold climate.
Oh yeah, many years ago, I worked in a greenhouse that had room enuf to swing a cat. Of course, the heating costs were so high that we had to make every square foot count, anyway.
The temperatures overnight have dropped back into the teens after a couple of unseasonably warm weeks. But, the daytime temperatures are quite warm in the little greenhouse because the sky is clear and the sun shining. It's 30F outdoors but 71 in there right now. The angle of the south wall was really set for this time of year but any plans I had to heat the greenhouse thru the winter never came about. Being non-rich, has it's limitations. Still, it has never cost me over $20/month in natural gas to heat these 180 square feet in the months that I do run the furnace.
You need to know that this is the 3rd iteration of the greenhouse (or, sunshed
). It began as a simple wall. Yep, I moved my little old lean-to greenhouse from the garage wall where it had stood and needed another wall.
I built the wall longer than my little greenhouse so that when I could get to it, it doubled in size. Then, it nearly doubled again by pushing the south wall out at an angle to catch the sun. Some have said that it looks like a "half of a house" and I suppose that's true. I probably should paint it now that so much weathering has grayed the cedar over the course of the last 14 years. Canterbury bells and foxglove grow along that north wall and do fairly well but they do require some support.
And then, there's my tunnel. A plastic tunnel isn't even as fancy-smancy as a half of a house but it's what you do with the interior of it that's important. Essentially, it's 2 raised beds with pvc pipe ached over the top and 6 mil film pulled over that from March to June. The other 8 or 9 months out of the year, it magically becomes - 2 beds in the garden.
This was a cold gray day in March, I believe.
Steve's digits
Oh yeah, many years ago, I worked in a greenhouse that had room enuf to swing a cat. Of course, the heating costs were so high that we had to make every square foot count, anyway.
The temperatures overnight have dropped back into the teens after a couple of unseasonably warm weeks. But, the daytime temperatures are quite warm in the little greenhouse because the sky is clear and the sun shining. It's 30F outdoors but 71 in there right now. The angle of the south wall was really set for this time of year but any plans I had to heat the greenhouse thru the winter never came about. Being non-rich, has it's limitations. Still, it has never cost me over $20/month in natural gas to heat these 180 square feet in the months that I do run the furnace.
You need to know that this is the 3rd iteration of the greenhouse (or, sunshed
). It began as a simple wall. Yep, I moved my little old lean-to greenhouse from the garage wall where it had stood and needed another wall. I built the wall longer than my little greenhouse so that when I could get to it, it doubled in size. Then, it nearly doubled again by pushing the south wall out at an angle to catch the sun. Some have said that it looks like a "half of a house" and I suppose that's true. I probably should paint it now that so much weathering has grayed the cedar over the course of the last 14 years. Canterbury bells and foxglove grow along that north wall and do fairly well but they do require some support.
And then, there's my tunnel. A plastic tunnel isn't even as fancy-smancy as a half of a house but it's what you do with the interior of it that's important. Essentially, it's 2 raised beds with pvc pipe ached over the top and 6 mil film pulled over that from March to June. The other 8 or 9 months out of the year, it magically becomes - 2 beds in the garden
.
This was a cold gray day in March, I believe.
Steve's digits
.
