winter garden in a greenhouse, is it possible?

[nightshade]

Okay here is the thing I live in nepa. Is there anyone with a similar climate that grows a winter garden in a green house? I am thinking of looking into doing this as a next step to being alittle more sistainable.

We are thinking of putting a greenhouse in two summers from now (2010) after we get our new house (a new double wide we are getting from a friend who is building a stick built home) in (2009) which is already arranged. Long story shortened version is... We basicly rent the place off Hubby's fokes. And have to clear the place for the new house. Which may be here even sooner I found out a few nights ago that it may be here in late May this year not next ahhhh. We are totally not ready yikes . Still.... Afterward we will have the big empty place full sun /partical shade open. Were the tin can we are in sits now. This is where we plan to put a 12x20 or so green house the following summer. And I know it is going to take alot of research to make it work and do it right so I figured I would start dreaming now.
Anyways.......

The thought was that in one end we would put a large tank/ pond to grow something like tilapia in and the rest would be a greenhouse. We would want to grow tomatoes, lettus, beans and possibly melons and peppers if it would be possible over winter as well as starting seeds ect. Soem forkes on the byc suggested root crops which would be a plus too. The thing is I don't know how fesible a winter garden in a greenhouse is? I have never talked to anyone that has done it. It will have a woodstove for heat in it since the fish need a warmer temp then naturally avalible around here. Hubby worked on a guy's house this winter that grows them in his basement in tanks so we are going to get some "how to" from him in that department.

So here I guess is the big question. What can be grown in a heated greenhouse over winter and work in this climate? I was thinking of planting the greenhouse about late summer and moving things like mature tomatoes in pots in before first frost. Am I nuts or can it be done? :/

 

[OCMG]

Anything, if the conditions are right...
If you simulate the outside with grow lights an warmth you can grow anything.
Look for my post on indoor tomato...

:rose

 

[patandchickens]

How cold can tilapia get before running into disease problems etc? (Sorry, too busy to google for it right now ). You might have trouble keeping a greenhouse -- especially if you mean something inexpensive and single-walled, like a plastic-covered hoop house -- warm enough through a NE PA winter. Might go through a *lot* a lot of wood.

If you do it, though, there are a bunch of veggies you could grow that are pretty tolerant of temperature swings. Lettuce, and in the cooler parts of the house spinach, possibly peas and kale and so forth. I would not be sanguine about the prospects of tomatoes, peppers, squash, or any of the other hot weather crops however. ESPECIALLY with just a wood stove for heat. I can tell you that back in victorian and edwardian times, when large hothouses became popular but were heated just by coal and wood and such, a person was generally employed to monitor and adjust the fires during the night so nothing got too out of whack. I am concerned that without continual monitoring like that, your chances of having a 'frost' in there at SOME point in the winter are quite high. You could *try* it of course and if it doesn't work you have only lost effort and the cost of the seeds... but I think that more frost-tolerant veggies would be a lot better bet.

If you do it, try to get as much 'heat sink' mass in the greenhouse floor as possible -- gravel, rock, cement, pavers, cement block, whatever. Collect large containers you can fill with water and set in any open space (some people get those big blue 55 gal drums, fill them with water and set planting benches on top of them. And consider insulating at least the sides of the floor from the surrounding ground, like with sheets of styrofoam, down at LEAST a foot. (You don't want the styrofoam poking its head up aboveground tho or it will disintegrate really fast -- top it with wood where it breaks the surface). All this will help your greenhouse maintain a more even temperature and ride out temporary fluctuations.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[digitS']

Nightshade, as a step in that direction, I suggest picking up Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest. Note that the title includes the word "harvest" rather than "growing." The growing of the crops occurs before Winter sets in but the veggies are there for harvest throughout the cold months.

You will not only need to deal with the issue of low temperatures but low light during the Winter months. Plants won't synthesize carbohydrates in darkness. Of course, it isn't dark all the hours of Winter but available light doesn't amount to anything like the outdoor growing season.

We just went thru a nice box of tilapia fillets . You may want to keep the fish indoors during the coldest months and only put them in a greenhouse when it warms up.

Steve

edited to say that I wasn't just thinking of keeping the tilapia indoors during the Winter as fillets

 

[nightshade]

Thanks for the tips.

I was trying to figure out if solor pannel lighting would work to make up the difference for the lack of winter sunlight. They have pannels at our local tracto supply for 60 bucks right now. You know rig up a pannel /battery set up to work the grow lights? Maybe set it to a timmer. Any thoughts?

 

[patandchickens]

You'd want to calculate out how much power you'd need to run meaningful grow lights. Just regular fluorescents, like you start seeds under, aren't going to do much of any good for growing tomatoes etcetera. (Not *quite* as much a problem for low things like lettuce, but I still would not hold my breath for a good lettuce crop with just a modest number of fluorescent shoplights).

You really need high-intensity lighting (partly b/c tomatoes etc need LOTS of light, and largely b/c the lights will be pretty far away from most of the plant leaves you're trying to light -- the reason shoplights work ok for seed starting is that you can hang them 2" from the leaves!)

Compact fluorescents (a LOT OF THEM) at a minimum, or higher-output lights like you'd use for a proper hydroponics setup or growing illegal substances in your basement.

The problem (other than they're expensive to purchase) is that they suck down a LOT of electricity. As I say, do the calculations, but I have a hard time believing you could run much effective adult-plant lighting with just a coupla 60 watt solar panels from the hardware store. I think you'd need something a lot closer to what you'd use to power a house. $$$

Not trying to discourage you from looking into it, but DO look into the numbers before buying anything.

(And p.s. up here in Canada, where illegal grow ops are a pretty common 'business' <rolling eyes>, I have never heard newspaper reports of any of them powered by solar -- in fact one of the commonest ways they get caught is the size of their electric bills. It is *possible* that people up here have just never though of it, but I much more suspect that there are feasibility problems).

(but OTOH, p.p.s. , I'm not sure I'm as convinced as Steve is that light is going to be a big problem for you. NE PA isn't *that* far north, and once you get to Xmas the days start to lengthen anyhow...)

Good luck,

Pat

 

[nightshade]

yea the power bill thing is something we are trying to reduce. The pannels were not 60 watters but $60 each. That's what made then so appealing was the low price. We have a local tractor store that a family owned store the size of the big corprate TSC stores in our area. They sells stuff like solar pannels and homeowner size windturbines, they even install them. A friend suggested I ask them what I would need to pull this off and see if they could point me in the direction of things that would work in this area since the promote self-sistainment, even if you can only do it as a help to bring down your power bills, ect.

Suposidly local and state goverment is fighting the removal of the eletric rate caps in 2010. But we got a letter from our power company saying that you can pay upfront to help defer the cost of the rate increase because they realize that it will be a problem for many people in the area. The are talking raising it 50-100 percent. AHHHHHH! The make it sound like it is a done deal. The worst part is we live less the 5 miles as the crow flies from the nuke plant that produces our power. And they are in the process of getting the okay for a third. They are already clearing the farm site where they plan to place it and it still has not been made offical.

So with that coming I am struggling just to keep Hubby completely on board with the gh. For anything but the fish ( what he really wants) and a slightly longer growing season. Not a full winter garden. But even that woudlnto be a complete loss I think. He reads about all the food recalls all the time and it worrys him too. Exspecially things like all the produce recalls last year.

He has always, since we were kids even talked about living off grid. Before we had our son we talked of moving north or elsewhere, basicly anywhere isoliated. We joke alot that we should have been born 100 yrs ago when things we simplier and farming was life.

But you have a baby and things change. But he still has the desire in him to do it lol. So that helps me out alot cause he has the desire to riase his own food more then alot of fokes our age. Some of our friends think we are turly nuts for wanting to build a backyard farm that can help sistain us and cut down on our enviromental impact as well.

I just borrowed a homesteaders book from the libary that had all kinds of tips and such for growing an indoor garden in a cabin or small house. That was were I read about the shop lights. And you have a good point Pat, it seems that you can grow just about anything around here. Even start seeds in attached sunrooms many of which in our area are built of nothing more then dozens of sliding glass doors. With no extra lighting as long as you keep them warm and watered. hmmm atleast I have some time to figure things out.

Thanks

 

[1acrefarm]

Just a thought. Ever think about building a grenhouse above a hog pen? They put off alot of body heat. The manure puts off heat too I guess. My grandma used to have a hog pen under an oak tree. It kept its leaves all winter.

 

[patandchickens]

He has always, since we were kids even talked about living off grid. Before we had our son we talked of moving north or elsewhere, basicly anywhere isoliated. We joke alot that we should have been born 100 yrs ago when things we simplier and farming was life.
But you have a baby and things change. But he still has the desire in him to do it lol. So that helps me out alot cause he has the desire to riase his own food more then alot of fokes our age. Some of our friends think we are turly nuts for wanting to build a backyard farm that can help sistain us and cut down on our enviromental impact as well.

Hmm. Have you sat down and worked out the actual economics of the greenhouse/tilapia/veggies idea? And compared it to the cost of, say, putting in a house-sized solar panel array, or something like that? Especially since you say that you expect horrendous electric rate increases soon.

It is not going to be cheap to set up the system you're talking about (gh-tilapia-veggies) in a way that has much hope of succeeding. Plus it will take MUCHO firewood (and tending of woodstove) to keep it warm enough (google sez that tilapia need water temperatures consistantly at 70 F or above). If the greenhouse is going to be lean-to against your house, at least you could get some degree of home heating out of it, which *might* tip the balance more towards worthwhile. If the greenhouse is going to be freestanding, though, then it seems to me that it is just an extremely expensive way to get fish and veggies that you could buy much cheaper at the store. Whereas setting up a big solar array to run your house's electric needs might cost a similar amount and actually SAVE you significant money in future years.

You could still grow tilapia in a big stock tank or whatever, perhaps in a lean-to with removable clear panel walls built against the house's exterior wall, only from springtime (buy babies) through fall (harvest, dress, freeze/eat). That way you do not have the complication of trying to keep a fundamentally equatorial species alive through a NE PA winter

And you could still do winter gardening, on a small scale, of lettuce, spinach, other cool-weather greens, in a large coldframe or modest lean-to greenhouse or something like that. And 'learn the ropes', see what is likely to work for you and what's not. (No out-of-season tomatoes or melons, of course, but then isn't part of self-sufficiency learning to let what you have, suffice? Leave the summer plants for summertime )

That way, you still get the home-grown food, but *without* large expenditures of money and possibly-fruitless energy. Thereby saving your money and energy for other projects with a better chance of a good return, you know?

Just a thought,

Pat

 

[nightshade]

Yea I have comsidering downsizing it for atleast the first few years. To see what will and will not work. I kindof though that we might grow the fish over summer harvest all at one time and freeze them since we buy forzen fillets anyway. So we are use to cooking them from frozen now not fresh.

I am really really hoping that the rate increase does not happen or the force it lower. But in our area where most make minimum wage even 25% woud be a burden to most families. But what ya gonna do they are gonna do what they want anyway it seems.