I've got 22 Orchids on shelves in my greenhouse. These are Mothers Day orchids that I got from Walmart a few weeks ago for 1/2 price or less after I mentioned to them that they were looking 1/2 dead and I'd gladly take them off their hands for 1/2 price. They agreed so now I'm looking for a way to keep the humidity fairly high around them instead of the usual 18-20% in the greenhouse once it heats up. Something simple with a timer would work for me if anyone has any ideas or links.
I hated the old misting system in my greenhouse so invested in a new misting timer and a couple of those misters for patios. They have a curling footprint where the hose attaches and so support themselves. I built a hose with multiple hose bibs from 1/2 inch drip tubing and drip parts for the misters, attached it to the timer and turned on the water. Perfect!
The humidity in my greenhouse falls to 10% every afternoon and is as high as 80% at night. I don't think either one of those extremes is a concern if the humidity doesn't stay there. Everyone is doing well: The Miltonia and Maxillaria just finished blooming and my Psychopsis has a bloom stalk.
Daisy
Sounds like a good idea Daisy, the extremes you have are about the same here then. What about temperature extremes in yours? I don't have fans in mine, no electricity, however once I get my 2nd one put together I plan on a generator situated between them for lights and fans.
Daisy, I've been looking at patio misters, can you give me some idea of what brand you bought and also what timer you have.
Chris
I do have fans, otherwise I would have a major mold problem. Keeping the air moving is important to the health of your plants. Moving air not only discourages mold and mildew but also forces the plants to grow stronger trunks and branches. Not a gale force wind, just a gentle breeze.
Temperatures inside my greenhouse range between the upper 50's in the winter to 110 in the summer. Outside, the lows are about -5 to -10 and the highs 100 - 105.
Misters: my first try was a Misty Mate system - a giant waste of money. The misters were either clogged or broken.
Second try, I built a system with 1/2 drip line and drip misters. It was more like a stream than a mist and kept my plants way to wet.
My final try is a Artic Cove Big Chill Personal Mister from Home Depot. I made my own hose because I wanted one with multiple bibs and I have the option of extending my hose length and adding more misters.
The timer is a great find - I went through quite a few of them too:
http://www.mrdrip.com/542--Solar-2-Dial-Timer_p_494.html
I'm attaching two photos. The cactus are on the west end and the orchids are on the east end. Also on the east end is a pond with a pump that I was hoping would provide sufficient humidity but it doesn't.
Daisy
Thanks for the reply Daisy and the link You have a beautiful setup. Yours must be twice as large as mine at least. Mine is only 13L X 10W X 8H. That's the reason I bought another one not only because it was 1/2 price but because I have so many plants now that there would not be room enough in just one. What I was thinking about doing for the 2nd one was to make a shelf out of planks and cinder blocks. As you can see in the photo I could probably attach it to the side or something or adapt it somehow. That way with two I can put my Hibicus, Angel Trumpets, Lily of the Niles and other large plants in one and small plants with the orchids in the other. I've also got some Double Purple Angel Trumpets (Datura) that will be pretty large by the time winter comes. I've got the front and back doors and the east side rolled up on mine and during the hottest part of the day it's around 120. Like I said in order to put fans in I'll have to get a generator and use it to run some fans to move the air around. I just don't want to run a 50' or so heavy duty outdoor cord out of the house. If you have any more suggestions I'm definitely willing to hear them. You're teaching me a lot so far.
Chris
The photos are deceiving. Its 23 feet L x 6.5 W. I have 1.5 feet of shelving on both sides and a walkway down the middle and that's it. My old greenhouse was 12 x 16 but this one has more usable space. I never figured out what to do in the middle of the old one.
Does your greenhouse have a good frame? I bought wire closet shelves from Home Depot. The ones on the floor are sitting on bricks. The shelves on the outside wall are held to the walls with bolts and suspended from the ceiling on the front edge by chairs.
On the wall side (its a lean-to), I found some old store display grates and hanging baskets. I had tried using some old plastic shelving units from my husbands office but they blocked too much light and the shelves were not adjustable limiting what you could put on them.
Hi Daisy, here are a few photos of mine after it was built. The frame is 1 3/8" steel tubing but as you can see there's not a lot to work with. I did the middle walkway with 39 12"X12" patio blocks and either side with pea gravel. That took about 15 .5cuft bags. The shelves in the other photos I bought at Lowes. I have one set of those at the north end and one set on the east side. The first photo is just after my wife and I got it put together then the others are of the inside. I bought a small square table at Walmart that now sits in front of the shelves at the rear. I use that for my potting table. The orchids are on the shelves to the back now instead of what's shown in the photo. That will all have to change when winter sets in and with two greenhouses I'll have more room as I have some gigantic Angel Trumpets and a very large Hibiscus (if the deer would leave it alone).
I was a little worried by that photo of the empty greenhouse but you have redeemed yourself with your photos of wall to wall plants. I starting filling mine before all 4 walls were up. Just couldn't help myself.
Daisy
:) It was full this past winter, the Trumpets were blooming in December, Hibiscus was full of blooms, Snapdragons were blooming in Feb and so on. That's why I needed a 2nd greenhouse I have so many more plants than I did last winter. I also have a lot in my front yard that I need to put in there.
I realized quickly that I couldn't grow anything outside that had to be wintered inside. I was never smart enough to leave a gap in the greenhouse scheme. You see a hole, you have to fill it. I have two Hibiscus on the patio that will have to come in for the winter and I have no idea where they are going to fit. I have stored plants that go completely dormant in the winter time in the garage (on my husband's side of course).
Daisy
Before we got the greenhouse last year we'd bring in everything we could into the living room, we have no garage. It would look like a jungle all winter. The things that wouldn't fit we tried to save by covering them with a sheet like we'd read, that didn't work very well.
That is all inspirational. Mine is 8 x 10
That's a great size. What are you growing in it? Are you heating, cooling, misting?
Daisy
At the moment I have an aquaponics tank with tilapia and goldfish, I am raising plants on trays that run over instead of the traditional valves and what not, and growing 4 strawberry plants (until they die, all the ones outdoors with wet roots either didn't make it or got rescued), 1 small early girl tomato plant, and I think it is ajuga, that bloom in spring. They are thriving with their roots in expanded shale watered with fish waste from the 100 gallon tank. right now no heating, no lighting and no misting at all, that will come with winter, when the tilapia will have to come indoors (I killed half of mine last winter because the greenhouse got below 55) and goldfish will go in the tank. I have supplemental lighting - aquarium lamps 4 ft T5's, but I won't put it on until I start bringing in my sun hungry plants that don't tolerate north Texas winters. I have big screened windows open right now for ventilation. Photos - I will put in another thread. so far only last year's...
My daughter is putting in an aquaponics system in her greenhouse (6 x 12). She has koi in her tank as she has a cool greenhouse - she keeps it above freezing in the winter time. On the back wall is her aquaponics system (she is using the overflow method but put her plants in 20 gallon stock tanks from the feed store). She has chard, basil, watercress and some other leafy greens but plans to add more plants in the spring.
The front side of her greenhouse has 1/2 dozen dwarf citrus. She has yuzu, kumquat and a mandarin or two. Oh, a key lime.
My greenhouse has cactus on the west end and orchids and a turtle pond on the east end.
Update on my misting system: The timer only works part time. Back to my more reliable DIGS. I discovered the Artic Cove Big Chill misters fit on a hose bib so I am doing away with the curly-que snake and putting my homemade hose back on the ceiling.
Daisy
I went in to feed the fish this morning and actually checked temp and humidity - 98 with 37% humidity. Don't think I need a misting system.
As it is I have a little roof damage at one corner, in addition to open windows, I left it to try to keep it vented out. forgot I had a couple of vitex starts (from seed) going in there too. I need to move those out and harden them off. The seeds don't start well on dry ground but I learned on DG to give them soggy and off they go. The mature bushes are drought hardy.
Vitex was one of my main weeds in the Central Valley of California. I started one from seed and in a few years, I was pulling them furiously. 8')
I don't get enough rain for vitex to be a weed. It is one of the few drought hardy tree/bushes surviving along Texas highways just now, and the one in my front yard is suffering from drought as well. We had rain in May, lots of it, but most of North Texas is back in severe drought. So severe even wildflower seeds I got out in early spring only got to 2 inches tall and that was WITH the may rains. I am doing landscape fabric (thick) and mulch on a lot of my yard as grass won't grow without irrigation, and weeds appear when it rains and sit there and dry out all scraggly afterward.
vitex bushes to either side of the paths can be watered and whatever rain falls will soak through hopefully. Just found one of my heirloom tough tough roses probably dead today, I don't think I can get enough water to it to revive it
And I thought Reno was bad. 6.5 inches of rain since January 1. The last two inches of that was in July and October. Have you thought of growing cactus? No, not a joke - I am growing cold hardy cactus.
Where did you find tilapia? I met a man in Idaho at a farmers market selling tilapia that he was growing in the hot springs (Idaho has a lot of hot springs). He told me he couldn't sell me one unless he killed it first per Fish and Game regulations. (he had one that was gorgeous - all orange and white stripey. I wanted to save its life and put it in my aquarium).
Mozambique tilapia are legal in Texas without a permit because they die at 55 degrees, I got them from a fingerling dealer in East Texas registered with the state, cost me a long drive and about 90 for 7 pounds or so. I killed a lot when they hid and I didn't get them in from the outdoor pond in time the first winter, nailed a bunch of beautiful white babies in the greenhouse during an early freeze last winter, brought the rest in and stuffed in aquariums both times. Sold off all but 4 this march for about what I paid for them 2 years before.
I don't like cactus or anything pokey, roses I planted my first year here and that's as much as I can stand in thorns. And I keep bees. So I have a north side flowerbed and every blooming shrub that will tolerate drought that I can find, scatter wildflower seeds as far as I can. . Heck one of my abelia died half way off this early summer too. and it was 14 years old.
I am hoping to start and grow vegetables in the greenhouse. We had almost no rain before May, 10 inches in May, and between the pond bed on the lot and the main garden I have had 5 cherry tomatoes and 3 juliet. No full size tomatoes at all, and I had cherokee purple and other varieties that have done well in past years. they just burned up and died, my sprinkler wasn't penetrating the garden deeply enough based on the back 4 ft of nothing I just found when I got out there a couple of weeks ago.
This message was edited Oct 10, 2015 10:50 AM
Why raise tilapia instead of goldfish or koi? Do you eat them?
I have a pond in my greenhouse with 2 koi, goldfish and a red eared slider. The water stays too cold, even though the greenhouse gets to 110 in the summer, to even keep a plecostomus happy.
My vegetable garden was hit and miss this year. The tomatoes closest to the house actually did good but cucumbers and squash never did a thing. I don't think they got enough water. Its all on drip but the "soil" is sand and rocks. I dug in a lot of compost but apparently not enough.
tilapia were originally to eat, but now just to breed,they sell like hotcakes to people who want to do aquaponics.
My soil is thinking about pulling a dust bowl anywhere but my garden. I don't water the grass anymore.
It looks like you have solved a major problem. Don't have to eat the pets and don't have to figure out what to do with them. 8')
I know tilapia are in demand in a lot of places. But, its hard to find waterways that stays that warm year 'round so I'm not sure why the Fish and Game people are so concerned about them. The guy I talked to in Idaho was growing them in hot springs. He didn't worry about them getting away because if they went downstream, the minute the water got cooler, they died.
Florida maybe should worry.
Texas worries about some varieties, but the Mozambique die if the water drops below 55 degrees so they are permitted in backyard ponds, aquariums, etc without a permit. We have a big problem with people releasing large fish like oscars, pacu, plecostomus, into our lakes. And other stuff, baby crocodiles and alligators when they get too big
want to look at greenhouse stuff soon but am in the middle of major bookkeeping, just finally got my taxes filed and PROBABLY won't have to amend the return, I think I got inventory straight. looking forward to finding chains to be able to adjust my lights and stuff
Oh, Paku. I was thinking of them when I wrote that last post. Where I used to live in California central valley, people kept releasing Paku into the waterways and ponds. Then other people catch them and think they have caught a piranha and freak out. Ah, fond memories...
Someone did find an alligator in a pond on some church property a couple years ago. I don't think it would have survived the winter but it was rescued in time.
