D'awww! They're All Growed Up!
Apr. 19th, 2010 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluesgardenThanks to the greenhouse being fitted with screen inserts for the doors, the plants were finally relocated out there this afternoon. It would be exceedingly silly to be fretting over their first night out of the living room, right? *totally doesn't fret* Ironically, the weather is supposed to get chilly enough for there to be areas of frost, so I had to swap the screened portions of the doors out for the solid portions overnight, and then I'll reverse the process in the morning so that it doesn't get too hot in there. Without the screens, the temperature inside can sore to well over 100°F (37.8°C) for large portions of the day.
I don't think I've talked too much about the greenhouse at this point, partially because it was still a D work in progress.
This is one of the original models. A retired air cargo transport container of some sort.
It's a money making enterprise by the usual suspects (D and his brother) that involves reselling them as sheds and otherwise inexpensive out buildings.
They put wooden fronts with doors on a few of them, which looked surprisingly respectable all considered, and sold them, as well as selling some with just the canvas fronts.
Then D got this idea to bolt two halves together to double the space and cut doors into either end - voila, greenhouse. (This and the next two pictures were taken in mid-March, hence the mud.)
The barrels are full of water and serve as heat sinks - they absorb heat during the day and radiate it back during the chilly evenings.
D built the benches for the inside - which are really, really heavy by the way.
Fortunately, D also ran across a remote temperature kit - one of the inside/outside readers that has a sensor that you leave outside - at a yard sale. He happened to mention it to me and, after I lit up like a Christmas tree, he acquired it. I wanted to set the sensor out in the greenhouse to be able to see how cold it was getting in there at night - and since this one had a 24 hour high/low reading, it was perfect. What it quickly revealed was that regardless of the temperatures at night, the heat soared in there during the day past the point that the plants would tolerate. With screens, it's only a little hotter than the outside air temperature.
The really important things are that a) I'm not hauling them outside for some natural sunlight and/or hardening off and b) watering is now a million times easier. When you're dealing with 64 tomato plants of various sizes, 3 full size flats, a couple of half flats, and 4 pots of onions... yeah, both those things got tricky. Now they don't have to be moved and the hose? Reaches to the greenhouse. Awesome! They won't be getting quite as much light as they would under the grow lights, but, um, I'm not particularly worried about that at this point.
(I also started the melons, watermelons, and pumpkins today, but that's a story for another evening. *g*)
As of right now, it's an even 50°F (10°C) out there and the tomatoes are telling ghost stories to the pepper seedlings.
I don't think I've talked too much about the greenhouse at this point, partially because it was still a D work in progress.
This is one of the original models. A retired air cargo transport container of some sort.
It's a money making enterprise by the usual suspects (D and his brother) that involves reselling them as sheds and otherwise inexpensive out buildings.
They put wooden fronts with doors on a few of them, which looked surprisingly respectable all considered, and sold them, as well as selling some with just the canvas fronts.
Then D got this idea to bolt two halves together to double the space and cut doors into either end - voila, greenhouse. (This and the next two pictures were taken in mid-March, hence the mud.)
The barrels are full of water and serve as heat sinks - they absorb heat during the day and radiate it back during the chilly evenings.
D built the benches for the inside - which are really, really heavy by the way.
Fortunately, D also ran across a remote temperature kit - one of the inside/outside readers that has a sensor that you leave outside - at a yard sale. He happened to mention it to me and, after I lit up like a Christmas tree, he acquired it. I wanted to set the sensor out in the greenhouse to be able to see how cold it was getting in there at night - and since this one had a 24 hour high/low reading, it was perfect. What it quickly revealed was that regardless of the temperatures at night, the heat soared in there during the day past the point that the plants would tolerate. With screens, it's only a little hotter than the outside air temperature.
The really important things are that a) I'm not hauling them outside for some natural sunlight and/or hardening off and b) watering is now a million times easier. When you're dealing with 64 tomato plants of various sizes, 3 full size flats, a couple of half flats, and 4 pots of onions... yeah, both those things got tricky. Now they don't have to be moved and the hose? Reaches to the greenhouse. Awesome! They won't be getting quite as much light as they would under the grow lights, but, um, I'm not particularly worried about that at this point.
(I also started the melons, watermelons, and pumpkins today, but that's a story for another evening. *g*)
As of right now, it's an even 50°F (10°C) out there and the tomatoes are telling ghost stories to the pepper seedlings.
