The Winter Journey and greenhouse plastic

Has, how does the auto-vent system work?  Sounds really good to me!  That's one of the things stopping me from pushing a greenhouse w/ DH...

Thanks.  m

Has,  Wow!    You are very creative and industrious.

That's awesome.  What a beautiful job you've done.  

I will probably install something similar next winter when we redo our greenhouse cover with 6 mil (since our cover only lasted one year).  I often forget to go outside in the morning and we can get over 100 degrees so quickly it's crazy.

And a great video!  I'm not sure how I missed that in Dec...  Very good explanation of what you're doing.

Thank you!

AtlantaMarie wrote:Has, how does the auto-vent system work?  Sounds really good to me!  That's one of the things stopping me from pushing a greenhouse w/ DH...

Thanks.  m

it actually a foundation or crawl space vent for pier and beams homes. It allows air circulation beneath the home . keeping the ground dry and preventing mold.  I used velcro to fasten on part to the metal housing and velco of the green house plastic . this way it would attached to each other. I also added gorilla glue to the glue side of the velcro that's attached to the greenhouse plastic for additional sticking power. Lowes and home depot have these , but the comments were not good. so I order from here-
 one or two piece crawl space vent

from there website: The non-powered, Automatic Foundation Vent will open and close automatically using a heat/cold sensitive coil. The louvers open completely at approximately 72°F and completely close at approximately 38°F. Unlike manual vents that can waste energy when no one remembers to open or close them, these vents self-adjust all year long.


if your green house is large, not a small hoop house. you may like something like this vent. A shutter  with a solar opener added to it.


POLY & ALUMINUM SHUTTERS FOR GREENHOUSE AIR FLOW-12" size and



Automatic Louvre Opener Used In Greenhouses

Thank you!  That info is very helpful...!

some of the dots are connecting about extending the season in the winter. I found this season, I'm having to water the plants because they can't get water from the rain or feel the wind when the temperature is in the upper 40's and higher. The square foot garden square box that I left behind for the continuation of the experiment is doing fine at this time. 








I can take the top off and allow the plants to  get all sun, rain and see my smiling face, buttttttttt the round low top hoop house is not in that position. just when I thought I had it all figure out.
I having another idea that I might be able to take the hoop house off without damaging the green house, thus letting the wind , rain come in, intermittently when the weather is good. It's not anchor down, but held down by the mulch. So I'm thinking of moving the mulch from the perimeter so I can lift it off (see picture below-how I did it before I covered it with plastic. the next picture show GH being held down with mulch).
 I don't know how it will do if it's windy, which I probably won't remove it. The metal may be heavy enough to keep it from blowing away.





I got the idea of lifting it from here. original hoopbenders
 

Great post, I did some experimenting this winter but nothing to your scale. Will post some pics of how mine went.  And how I'll improve upon it next season.

steve638 wrote:Great post, I did some experimenting this winter but nothing to your scale. Will post some pics of how mine went.  And how I'll improve upon it next season.

Look forward to those pictures!

quick fixed with 5 ways couplers, row covers and snap claps for newly transplants of broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and lettuce. temp down to 27 degrees next two nights.

27*F !! What brought on the freeze? I'll have to catch up on national (and international) news now that I'm home.

I need to create some hoop house structures for my new 4 x 8 beds.  How many hoops would you put on them and how far apart?  I'm going to be using them more for using tulle to keep the birds and insects out than for greenhouses.  Although in a normal, colder year I'll put plastic on them to warm things up a little earlier.

I would put 4 minumin but 5 would give a couple more options and security.  I think the tulle would hang better with more support.  I used 3 on a 4x4, over kill but it kept the sag to a minumin and helped with my wind troubles.

I use four hoops on a 3' x 8' bed evenly spaced with a support across the top from one end of the bed to the other end.  This keeps it from sagging too much.  This is for Tulle and plastic.

Nice!

has55,

I think this animation from Wunderground explains most of the cold temps currently occurring:

http://www.wunderground.com/maps/us/Temperature.html  

By the way, this is similar to the pattern we've seen for most of the winter.  Mr. Groundhog seems to think it will persist for another six weeks.

donnainzone10 wrote:has55,

I think this animation from Wunderground explains most of the cold temps currently occurring:

http://www.wunderground.com/maps/us/Temperature.html  

By the way, this is similar to the pattern we've seen for most of the winter.  Mr. Groundhog seems to think it will persist for another six weeks.

thank you. nice

yolos wrote:I use four hoops on a 3' x 8' bed evenly spaced with a support across the top from one end of the bed to the other end.  This keeps it from sagging too much.  This is for Tulle and plastic.

loved the setup

has55 wrote:

yolos wrote:I use four hoops on a 3' x 8' bed evenly spaced with a support across the top from one end of the bed to the other end.  This keeps it from sagging too much.  This is for Tulle and plastic.

loved the setup

yolos, I was reviewing your picture and noticed that you have mulched around your SFG beds and you also have a border that seems to contained the garden area. 

May I asked what are you using the mulched for around your beds?-walkways?

do you have any pictures showing the entire setup and the borders or can you point me to a thread that shows this?

what did you use to create the border?

yesterday, on our drive to Dallas to  the nursery to get some different style plants, like cheddars cheese cauliflower, my wife asked is the mulch going to bring lots of spiders or roaches? these are her personal fears.  I reassured her everything would be ok because I hadn't heard anything negative about it from the SFG community or on the web. 
Have there been anything negative that you or others have experience and hopefully resolved.

I have seen two of these around a raised bed near the house foundation. Some organic material has been spilled around it, plus small leaves, creating a hospitable environment. The common local names are Oriental CR or garden CR. Garden because it prefers mulched or rotting wood, wet areas. If you see one inside, it's either an accident or a wet rotting area like a long term leaking pipe under a kitchen or bathroom cabinet, or rotting, wet sub-flooring. They prefer the outdoors. Just don't let your wife see this topic!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_cockroach

sanderson wrote:I have seen two of these around a raised bed near the house foundation.  Some organic material has been spilled around it, plus small leaves, creating a hospitable environment.  The common local names are Oriental CR or garden CR.  Garden because it prefers mulched or rotting wood, wet areas.  If you see one inside, it's either an accident or a wet rotting area like a long term leaking pipe under a kitchen or bathroom cabinet, or rotting, wet sub-flooring.  They prefer the outdoors.  Just don't let your wife see this topic!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_cockroach

we get the water bug around our area. at least that what the locals call it. I call it a roach. Since I put DE under the mulched in the flower beds before I had applied the mulched a few years ago, this has not been a problem I also had an exterminator blow DE under my pier and beam house , this process carried it into the walls . This may also had stop them.
But i didn't apply it the base for this project. so I might go to the feed store and apply it on top and let it work it way down. I no good when it wet, but comes back to full power after it dries out.

We also have plenty of tree lizards. I see them of the outside wall in the late spring thru fall.

Thanks Sanderson.

has55 wrote:

has55 wrote:

yolos wrote:I use four hoops on a 3' x 8' bed evenly spaced with a support across the top from one end of the bed to the other end.  This keeps it from sagging too much.  This is for Tulle and plastic.

loved the setup

yolos, I was reviewing your picture and noticed that you have mulched around your SFG beds and you also have a border that seems to contained the garden area. 

May I asked what are you using the mulched for around your beds?-walkways?

do you have any pictures showing the entire setup and the borders or can you point me to a thread that shows this?

what did you use to create the border?

yesterday, on our drive to Dallas to  the nursery to get some different style plants, like cheddars cheese cauliflower, my wife asked is the mulch going to bring lots of spiders or roaches? these are her personal fears.  I reassured her everything would be ok because I hadn't heard anything negative about it from the SFG community or on the web. 
Have there been anything negative that you or others have experience and hopefully resolved.

This is a full on shot of my garden as of late fall 2014.


My walkays between the beds are three feet wide.  I originally put down many layers of newspaper and then wheat straw.  But that really only lasted one year and wheat started growing on top of the newspaper.  So the next year I tried newspaper and then mini pine bark nuggets.  That is working fairly well to keep the weeds down.  I still get some weeds, but not too many and usually easy to remove.  Then this fall, the leaves from the big live oak tree next to the garden deposited leaves on top of the pine bark nuggets on part of the garden.  I have had no problems with roaches or any other bugs in the mulch.

Yes, I have a border around much of the garden.  This was originally a old style row garden.  It is also on a very slight incline.  When we built the old row style garden, we put 6" x 6" x 8' lumber around three sides of the garden for various reasons.  When I converted it to SFQ, I moved the 6" x 6" lumber from one side of the garden to make one long 4 foot x 32 foot bed on the far side of the garden.  Then I replaced the lumber on that side with 4" x 4" foot lumber.  So two sides now have the 6" x 6" lumber and one side has the 4" x 4" lumber.  On the fourth side I just used whatever is handy to form that border.  Easy to move the pieces or just roll over them with a wheel barrow.  I like borders to keep the mulch contained and originally to keep the dirt contained when I had the row style garden.
Here is a link to my pictures from my 2014 garden.
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t17310-2014-sfg-in-brooks-ga

Just BEAUTIFUL!  You've done a great job on the framework, my garden is no where near as neatly put together  !

Yolos, those pictures hit a home run or should i say touch down since it the end of the Super Bowl Era. love how you organized everything.

Thanks to everyone that helped with the information on how to make these.  I managed to finish my tulle hoop houses today and plant one of them.  Our last frost date is March 15th, however last year it was Feb 1 and this winter has been so much warmer than last or usual that my seeds will likely be just fine in them.

I have propped the grid wall panels against the boxes to help "encourage" my cats to stay away.  They will become my trellises when summer comes.  They are left over from when we did trade shows and retail shows.  

If we have a frost headed our way, I'll just whip out some plastic 

These 2, 4x8 table top costs ended up:

Boxes were free
Landscape fabric we lined them with was purchased about 10 years ago so I count that free!
$40 in additional Vermiculite and peat (I had a lot left from earlier gardens)
$22.00 - 1.99 yard for 10 yards of 108" tulle at Joanne's (using a 50% off coupon) 
18.00 in pvc
Home made compost

So approx. $40 a box to which I'll add 6 mil greenhouse plastic for the fall.