The GH

The plants are in the GH. It went down to 25f degrees last night so I put my non-hardys in the GH yesterday. I remember the days when I had so many plants in the GH that I could barely fit in myself. Boy! it's empty.

Hi Weeding,

25 degrees inside the GH? Are you heating it? Nice Papaya forest - they don't survive lower that 65 or so. So I am thinking you have the heat thing under control.

What isn't there that used to be? Where did the rest of your plants go?

I'm about to have my own GH trauma. Our weather is going to highs of 30 and lows in the single digits for a couple days. My thermal solar system is not working properly - some sort of pressure/backwash thing (I don't know but my husband and the contractor apparently do). In the meantime, I have purchased an electric space heater that I hope is hefty enough to handle this.

Otherwise, my orchids are toast - more likely popsicles.

Daisy

I do have heat, it's an electric heater that I have on a timer and comes on at 7:00 pm and goes off and on every 15 minutes. Come cold days it will be set to do 15 on and off 24//7. I actually have been heating the GH for years this way. It's gone down below 60 at night for weeks know and the Papayas have been OK outside and actually started putting out blooms.

I had a time of medical problems and was not able to take care of my potted plants and most of them died. I lost a lot of my plants in the ground outside when we had the terrible no rain not able to water (by law) year.

I'm afraid I will have mushrooms growing allover my GH floor. I found these mushrooms growing in my elevated garden bed in the GH. I didn't remove them right away because I was waiting to see if anyone could ID them. I went out today to find the spores allover the plastic inside the GH. I wish they were edible because I love mushrooms. I have some morel and portabella spawn coming and I might inoculate that bed with one of them since this mushroom grew so prolifically in it.

Mushrooms... that's a new one. My GH weed is ferns: Maidenhair and 5-fingered.

Can you kill them with fungicide?

I could kill them with a 10% bleach solution, but my floor is a cedar mulch and the fungicide and the bleach will stop the breakdown of the mulch. I will wait to see what happens.

That's an interesting floor covering. Why did you choose cedar mulch and why do you want it to break down? Do you plant things directly into the ground?

I put down the cedar mulch because it was on cell and I thought it might repel some of the insects. I want it to break down because some of the pieces are a little large it makes the pots not sit level, which causes the water to run out of the pot. I placed the cedar mulch in the GH last year and it seems to create a lot of humidity. Actually too much. I have water dripping from the ceiling. The plants probably love it but it can make things like black sooty mold take over. I think I will go out next week and spray the lives with a plant fungicide.

Sounds like fun - spraying the entire GH with fungicide. Do you have fans? I have a concrete floor (that I have to spray with fungicide in the summer because it grows green slime) and 4 fans to keep the air moving. Otherwise, the black sooty mold takes over and the plants don't really seem to care for that.

I keep a fan going throughout the winter. It helps to circulate the heat.

What I discovered is that if there are any "dead" spots were the air does not circulate, I grow sooty mold.

I have 3 small fans that run 24/7, but was having trouble keeping temps even. I'd go out to find one of my top vents open and the heater on. I have the Bayliss auto openers and a 20k BTU propane heater. An expensive combination. I haven't put my solar blanket on just yet, so to overcome the problem I put a small turbo fan int the center of the aisle on the floor, pointed straight up. It has evened the temps so well the vent rarely opens and the heater operates less. The other possible help was recommended by Bayliss: to loosely wrap the cylinder assembly with foil so it responds to ambient temperature rather than being activated by direct sunlight. :-}

My greenhouse also has Bayliss vents: 3 top and 3 bottom. In the winter, I screw off the little adjustment handle and zip-tie the vents shut (mostly because of the 90 mph winds we have once in awhile). I leave two un-zipped, a top one in the most protected corner, also turns out to be the shadiest, and a bottom one on the opposite end of the GH.

My greenhouse is a lean-to: 23' x 6.5'. We had our coldest temps of the year this week - 13 degrees. With my electric back-up and my solar panels, the temps by the windows stayed above 60* which is right where I want them. Enough to make the orchids anxious to bloom without freezing anyone. I keep the most cold sensitive plants against the house wall. It has the radiant heat (stucco wall) and that's where the hot water pipes from the thermal solar panels run. I also have some cold sensitive plants on the floor where the rest of the hot water pipes are buried in the floor.

I raise mostly orchids and cactus with a few tropicals.

Daisy

I disabled my last top vent yesterday morning as a wind storm was blowing in. I'm not sure how much it would take to rip a vent right off the roof. The wind got up to 65.

Now the problem is no ventilation - when the sun shines, the heat builds up fast. My "for now" solution is to open the bathroom window. It is covered by and near the top of the GH so heats the house and cools the GH. Its working pretty good; it might be my permanent solution.

I wish I could afford a solar setup. That would help to reduce the increased electric bill from the heater in the GH. Ric_of_MAF how do you use your solar blanket? Is it the foil or the pool solar blanket?

I don't have a solar blanket. The GH is heated by the hot water produced by the thermal panels on my roof. The hot water circulates through pipes under the GH floor and on the back wall. I have two holding tanks in my garage and a Polaris burner to help heat water if the weather is not cooperating.

I attached some photos. The first is the tanks and all the pipes. The Polaris is on the right.

#2 pipes on the wall
#3 pipes before the concrete floor was poured over them. The open space at the end is now a pond where my turtle lives.
#5 is how it looks now

Daisy your GH is beautiful. My GH is 12x10 plastic covered. Is that a pet in pic# 4?

Yes, Spot the red eared slider. I rescued him 15 years ago after he'd had a run in with a car. Both shells were broken. It took a couple years for him to heal - turtles are slow. I also have a bug free GH because I accidently brought tree frogs from CA. They even eat ants. But not scale or mealy bugs.

DaisyPlantLady, that is so neat! Love the Spot story.

The best part is that Spot always scowls when he sees me. I know turtles have a natural scowl but he scowls in his heart. He still hates me for saving his life.

It was probably the twice daily betadine dips and the antibiotics I was force feeding him for 6 months. It's hard to explain to a turtle that you are just trying to make him better.

I can still get a hiss out of him when I pick him up and look him in the eye.

Daisy