The Ideas Genie Community Forum
Our Gardens => My Garden => Topic started by: roiphil on December 11, 2009, 08:15:17 PM
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I have been very busy of late, i was given 10 double glazed windows, so i thought i know make a greenhouse, had the blocks and sand, couple of mobile home doors one for each end and i end up with a double glazed greenhouse 16 ft by 12 ft approx all i had to buy was cement, some wood and the corrrugated perspex sheeting for roof, think it has set me back about 350 - 400 euro
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/IG%20Pro/gh.jpg)
bench and staging on one side i have water pipe installed just need to connect to mains then i will have an auto matic watering system that side got all the parts timer, tubing mist nozzles etc
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/IG%20Pro/gh2.jpg)
and what every greenhouse needs some where to sit on those cold days ;D
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/IG%20Pro/gh1.jpg)
a wood burning stove which i saved from our old mobile home, ignore the wood i concreted around the flue yesterday and i had to put some wood on inside to hold concrete in
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Phil, that is a real good job!
If it anything like my experience, you will really enjoy it. Imagine this - a shower of rain comes down, rain stops play? - no, of course not. There is ALWAYS something you can do in the greenhouse. Its warm and bright and you can put every minute to good - you can grow and propagate just about anything!
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Thanks still small bits to do to it yet, it will get finished properly before xmass, if all goes to plan ::) make that easter ;D
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Well, that's a greenhouse-and-a-half Phil. Once you've got that finished your family won't see you for weeks on end - you won't want to leave it. :D
All you need is an intercom system and you've got it made.
Seriously though, that's a great project. You're going to achieve a lot in such a 'plush' environment - the extra heat being gained from your double-glazed windows will be a bonus I would imagine.
We're envious that you've got the space to have such a large greenhouse. We're having to make do with a 6 foot by 6 foot bog-standard greenhouse - anything bigger and we'd have no room for planting. :(
Keep us updated with your progress Phil.
Laurie.
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Tremendous job Phil, but I agree with Laurie - how lucky you are to have the space for such a large greenhouse. But good on you, it was an ambitious project that has come to fruition.
Brian
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Thank you very much for all your kind comments, before the greenhouse i was contemplating getting a polytunnel size wise i think it was 30 ft by 12 which would have cost close to 900 euro by the time i bought wood etc to fix the plastic to, then if it rips you have to repair it and the plastic is only meant to last about 5 years, but then i was given the double glazed windows so polytunnel was no more, for now anyway ;) will have to see what happens on plant side of business
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That is terrific, Phil. A greenhouse with a view too ! :)
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That is terrific, Phil. A greenhouse with a view too ! :)
Most certaintly and the stove is in the right place to sit on and look at the view across to the shannon on a clear day anyway, stil got bits to do on the out side and inside yet
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Phil:
I?m getting envious of you; the first major (for me!) purchase when I started gardening was a rather small greenhouse in kit form. It is still in storage area, but I hope that my first resolution for the coming year will be to get it set up.
I plan on building a cement foundation to set it on, but I?m in a quandary as to what kind of floor to have in it. Is your greenhouse setting on bare earth now, I can?t tell from your photo?
I?ve checked several on-line sources, and several reference books on the subject, but they don?t seem to want to agree either. I guess, drainage from watering and the floor becoming slippery are the bugaboos.
Suggested are gravel, bricks, and pavers with a weed barrier laid down, or cement (slanted) with proper drainage. Or possibly, bricks down the main aisle, with gravel under the staging, etc. White landscape rock that will reflect light is also suggested.
What?s your thoughts, and of the other Members?
- Toby
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What?s your thoughts, and of the other Members?
Well, in our very modest 6' x 6' greenhouse we have a set of 3' x 2' flagstones around all the inside edges (a good solid base for our metal staging), and in the middle we have a 2 to 3 inch depth of large gravel. The gravel is an aid to the drainage when watering and we don't get any weeds coming through.
This system seems to work okay for us anyway.
Laurie.
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Mine is 8ft wide. Down the middle I have 3x2 pavers - no covering, and soil in the borders right and left..
However, the entire length on both sides has staging (and a 6ftx2ft hot bed) so soil is never used - too many pots, cuttings and seed trays (I did grow tomatoes one year and Carnations and Chrysanths another).
One word of warning - make sure there is nothing to trip on. It doesn't bear thinking about in a greenhouse.
I haven't found any problems with water on the slabs. In summer I hose the whole floor area as I retreat from the greenhouse.
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Thanks, Laurie and George:
George, would you mind elaborating on your 6'x2' hot bed? How do you use it, are you using electrical coils, or heat mats to heat it? I'm going to have to run my greenhouse 'cold' to start with, but will try to later heat it, either with a portable propane heater, or run electrical power to it.
I do plan on germinating my seedlings, via trays or pots, on a rack I made of PVC pipe. But, have to use it in an unheated basement, so plan on purchasing several heat mats. I have heard that the cheaper heat mats will not last, and to invest in good ones when I purchase. The rack will include 3 double flourescent light fixtures that are adjustable, over the three shelves in the rack.
I also understand there is also a germination unit of several stacking trays, that fits over one heat mat. Does anybody know about it?
- Toby
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The hot bed has a base of 4 to 6in of grit and sand. I laid the bed on an underbed of concrete blocks placed on the soil as that amount of grit is heavy. Embedded (punny) is a long wire (called a coil ::)) which runs up and down the length (like the wires in an electric blanket). The bed has wooden sides to a height of about 30ins, and I can cover that with glass to keep heat in.
I think your heat mats would be better Toby. I haven't used them so hopefully the others will comment.
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No heating in our greenhouse I'm afraid. :(
Just have a paraffin heater as standby, which we have never as yet used.
We were going to get electrics fitted - but that's another looooong story. ::)
Laurie.
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I read somewhere that heating that gives off fumes can cause problems with plants, but that is from (rather fading ::)) memory.
If that is still the current thinking then electric heating is best.
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The blocks are on a concrete foundation base but the floor inside is just earth but i have covered over the benching and staging side and middle with plastic, this will eventually one day ::) be gravelled over, heating solid fuel stove flue on outside, would like to instal a hotbed found some soil warming cables on ebay but need electric to greenhouse first
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A while back Kathy decided she wanted electrics in our greenhouse. Shouldn't be a problem we thought. Did some research on the net to see what bits of kit we'd need as a prelude to getting an electrician in to connect them all up.
This is where it got a bit sticky. The electrician duly arrived, we told him what we wanted, then he asked how old the house was and when it was last re-wired.
Oh dear, the wiring needed bringing up to the latest EU Codes. Cost to have that done first, then all the electrics to the greenhouse, in the region of about £2,000 to £3,000. :o
Of course, being a very helpful type of guy he said that, although taking work away from himself, we could do it ourselves. That way we wouldn't have to have any re-wiring done in the house itself.
However, if we decided to move we'd have to put it back to how it was - removing all the greenhouse electrics that is.
Well, needless to say we temporarily shelved that idea.
More recently our personal circumstances changed dramatically. Kathy and I then had to re-assess ourselves and made the joint decision to move house down to the Norfolk area.
So we're now in the current position of having our house completely re-wired and decorated - hence my sparse interaction on the Forum. The decorator guy is a friend of someone Kathy worked with so he comes highly recommended. He's doing a great job without ripping us off. There's far too much to be done for Kathy and I to tackle the work, so we're doing bits and pieces of prep work, taking curtains and blinds down and moving bits of furniture around.
He's finished the Living Room/Dining Room, porch, hall, staircase and landing and small front bedroom. He's moving into our main bedroom next, rear bedroom then he'll move downstairs again to do the kitchen, our office and en-suite bathroom. The office is the tricky one as this has been our refuge up to now whilst he's been doing the rest of the house. Our computers will need to be disconnected temporarily, so we'll be 'off-the-air' for a while.
New carpets and vinyl flooring have been organised to be fitted later. The decorator's son is a plasterer/tiler so we've got him roped in to do some work too. A new sink unit, worktops and some tiling is part of the work required in the kitchen too.
GOSH!! When will it all end? :o
Anyway, at the end of all this we'll have a fantastically re-wired and modernised house for someone to buy. This is the main aim of the exercise - to get a quick sale at our asking price (as yet to be determined).
Our timeline for the house going on the property market is early into the New Year.
So, back to an electrified greenhouse (sorry for the brief digression there people :D) who knows what our new home will have to offer. We're hoping to acquire a decent sized garden and any greenhouse, either present or to buy, will have electrics fitted at some point.
Phew! Glad I got all that off my chest. ;)
Laurie.
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George and Others:
Real briefly, you may be right on your assumption that propane may not be the best way of heating a greenhouse. With a real quick online check with my Greenhouse supplier, they evidently are not stocking propane heaters anymore. Just electric and natural gas. They used to, and some of their website info still refers to them. I will check this out quite carefully before buying anything, maybe even give them a phone call!Thanks for pointing this out! I can still grow things 'cold'.
- Toby
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Crikey laurie you certaintly have a lot on your plate at the moment, the 2 boys moved into their own house which meant a spare bedroom so i have turned into an office come guest bedroom (when the daughter comes to visit) and just doing that, repainting, laminate flooring, then the mighty task of moving the phone line into the office, not a big problem just pull it up from front room via the attic then down a hole in the ceiling into office room, then move the pc with the spaghetti junction of cables for all the various connected toys, 3 printers, plus your normal monitor etc, just need a bigger desk now, and whilst i was at it go through all paper work and chuck out a pile of info i had worked on and finished with,
At the moment i have bookshelves up with all my books on, a good 5 meters of old and new gardening books plus others, and on the floor boxes of stock, horse tack etc, spare keyboards and the such, getting it sorted slowly
Phil
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Crikey laurie you certaintly have a lot on your plate at the moment,........
We certainly do Phil, but it will be worth it in the end.
That's the only thing that's getting us through all the turmoil. :)
Laurie.
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been doing some more to greenhouse have installed the mist system to cut down on watering
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/100_0142.jpg)
as you see at the top a length of 2x2 with 4mm pipe with mist waterers 8 in total i originally started with 2 lots of these, low down about 1 ft above staging but it did not cover area needed 90 cm, so solution take one lot away and raise the other one until it is at the correct height approx 4 ft above staging which gives me a mist coverage of 100 cm perfect,
Fed from the mains half inch heavy gauge mains water pipe onto a tap, then a silverline timer, i shall set the timer to come on for 10 minutes every hour, from the timer, hoselock connectors and normal hosepipe then reduces down to the 4mm pipe which feeds the misters, a masterpiece of head scrathching and bodging of old plumbing bits ;D, and the wife moans when i keep old bits and bobs they came in usefull this time ;D
hopefully it will reduce the amount of manual watering
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And you will be in trouble again, if the wife happens to go in there, and the misters start up. :o
Or is she denied access to your greenhouse Phil. ;D
Malcolm
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And you will be in trouble again, if the wife happens to go in there, and the misters start up. :o
Or is she denied access to your greenhouse Phil. ;D
Malcolm
its my hide away no women aloud ;) unless she is carrying a cup of coffee ;D
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You do have to be very careful with heaters and greenhouses. Some plants are very sensitive to fumes and candidly so are humans if you get it wrong!
My greenhouse is 16'x12' and when I first started using it, I tried electric oil-filled radiators. I had a couple of 1500 watt units and found that they really couldn't cope when we have a cold snap - typically 15-20F outside at its coldest. A couple of years ago, I invested in a propane heater - which is specially constructed so that the flame does not burn on inside air, but has a double wall chimney unit that draws in outside air through the outer chimney tube and exhausts through the inner chimney tube. The unit also has blowers so that is circulates the air better. It's 25,000Btu and it means I can hold the minimum temperature in the greenhouse at 45F in pretty much all weather. Here's a link to the website that has much more information about these types of heaters: http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/accessory/heaters2.shtml.
It's been very useful as I can now keep some of the tender potted plants like Tibuchina, Mandevillas, Bananas and also all my young shrubs I've been propagating continue to grow happily year round.
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its my hide away no women aloud ;) unless she is carrying a cup of coffee ;D
Oh Phil ::), in our household Anthea is in charge of the greenhouse. She thinks men are for the heavier work :). I don't take her mugs of coffee there though!
Mind you We don't have the magnificent structure you have built yourself and certainly no watering system. There has a stand pipe beside the green house door and Anthea is in charge of the watering too. Anyway I hope you really enjoy it.
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Its first class Phil, with or without that coffee service.
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i tried the solid fuel stove when we were completely frozen and it kept the green house above minus, not sure how much as no thermometer in their, but i lit the stove in the morning, and late afternoon i filled it up with hi heat coal and turf, turned the regulator on the front to half a turn from closed (this lets the air in under the coals etc which keeps it burning) next day it was still going about 10 o'clock in the morning, then all you do empty the ash tray and re stock with more coal which is pretty good.
On fumes you get no fumes when the door is shut as all smoke goes up the flue, when you open the door to put more coals in that is when you get smoke inside
these stoves have to be constructed in the factory properly so no fumes come out of any joins because you put the stoves in kithcens, front rooms etc, in our kithchen we have a solid fuel range which we dont use its more for somewhere to put your wellies boots etc on
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been doing some more to greenhouse have installed the mist system to cut down on watering
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/100_0142.jpg)
as you see at the top a length of 2x2 with 4mm pipe with mist waterers 8 in total i originally started with 2 lots of these, low down about 1 ft above staging but it did not cover area needed 90 cm, so solution take one lot away and raise the other one until it is at the correct height approx 4 ft above staging which gives me a mist coverage of 100 cm perfect,
Fed from the mains half inch heavy gauge mains water pipe onto a tap, then a silverline timer, i shall set the timer to come on for 10 minutes every hour, from the timer, hoselock connectors and normal hosepipe then reduces down to the 4mm pipe which feeds the misters, a masterpiece of head scrathching and bodging of old plumbing bits ;D, and the wife moans when i keep old bits and bobs they came in usefull this time ;D
hopefully it will reduce the amount of manual watering
Well the above watering method has not proven to be very good kept on getting a build up of drips when it stopped misting, as you will all know you dont want dripping water over sown seed as it washes the compost and seed away, i tried it with the misters upside down, i just turned the length of wood upside down and tried that even more drips so now i have this
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/100_0155.jpg) (http://s148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/?action=view¤t=100_0155.jpg)
7 misters in a row down the middle of the staging and it works a treat, no more drips as the spray mist does not go up high enough to wet any roof trusses etc, just enough water pressure to cover the staging
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/100_0157.jpg) (http://s148.photobucket.com/albums/s19/roiphil/?action=view¤t=100_0157.jpg)
i originally started of with 2 rows, 13 misters but not enough water pressure to do the other 6 misters, as we are only gravity spring fed water, so cut one row out and move remainder to the middle, job a good one hopefully, fingers crossed, now i need to figure out how to get water to other side of greenhouse for other staging, thinking cut into mains with half inch heavy gauge and run that across floor upto a new tap on other side, but thats later
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A great bit of ingenuity there Phil.
Nice set of photos too that really show the process you're going through to build your greenhouse and get your watering system set up correctly.
A great inspiration, and tutorial, for anyone else who may want to build their own greenhouse and use that method. 8)
Keep up the good work.
Laurie.
P.S. I sense the possibility of another Gold Star coming your way at the end of this project. You never know. ;)
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Patience is a virtue Phil.
May all your plants grow and exceed your expectations. ;D
Malcolm
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Thank you all, it took a while to sort the watering out play here play there etc, to get it right, hopefully got it right had the misters set to come on lastnight not been and had a look yet at the success 8) or carnage :'( more installments on greenhouse with a view to come got plans that dont need planning permission approval ;)
had a look and all is good may have to alter the duration time the misters come on will try down to 5 mins every hour from 9pm to 8am i think and see how that goes dont want to over water, but dont want to under water
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Patience is a virtue Phil.
May all your plants grow and exceed your expectations. ;D
Malcolm
i hope so some trays of veg plants are sold already about 500 plants