My Greenhouse

This has been one big learning experience, and I decided to put what I thought was relevant here. 

I live in San Antonio, Texas. It gets blazingly hot down here, even reaching in the 80'sF during January. This is great for some plants, but its horrible when we go from freezing weather to hot weather in a few days.  My plants really don't know if they should be dormant or not.  Worse yet, I put plastic over my greenhouse in the winter to keep it warmer on the inside with natural heat from the sun. Well, in February it got up to 85F outside, 100F inside!  My single fan almost isn't enough. 

Above is a picture of it finished in November 1999.  I have two vents in the front, and the open when the fan (not installed yet) kicks on.  There is full sun on the right side, and Oak trees shade the left side for the afternoon.  I am forced by some higher powers to share this with my brother.  That's fine...I got the right side, he got the left.  

My entire collection as of November 1999. Pretty pathetic. 

The plastic is double poly, and is inflated by the small fan in the middle left of the picture.  Make sure if you do this you cut a small hole on the opposite side, so you won't blow up the plastic.  My tables are as cheap as you can get -- cinderblocks and a plastic pallet.  I built some wooden tables a week after this picture was made, seen below.   If you see it, I did get shade-cloth on the sides, but didn't have enough for the top,  it's been ordered. 

The collection as of January 17th 2000! This is after I had a serious heater malfunction, which cooked my plants. My wonderful Nepenthes x coccinea looks very pathetic. At this time, I thought I would be throwing away most of my collection. 

  My stock almost ready for sale was pretty much everything in the large plastic tubs.  Notice I have a thick layer of Mulch on the ground. If you water the mulch thoroughly  whenever the heater is on, the greenhouse will maintain a good level of humidity.  I built some new tables as you can see, from wolmanized lumber and wire. I really need to clean up that mess under the right table...

  
I used to keep all my plants in individual water trays.  After dividing and replanting, I found out
I would need over 100 little trays, which wouldn't be very efficient for the summer.  I went to Target and found these large 'underbed' plastic boxes on clearance in January. You can pop the lids off and have the perfect water tray for many plants. The containers themselves are 3 inches deep (left), while the lids are 1 inch deep (right).   The plants on the right are Miracle Fruit, another odd plant I grow. 

Talking about heaters, here is mine.  One big mama-jama --  It's a propane heater from Grainger.  Make sure with any gas heater you use that you have the exhaust leaving the greenhouse.   The heater turns on at 50F- it has a separate thermometer.  
I didn't plan on having the fan right behind it, and it will be moved to the side in a month or so.  

     
\There are many types of thermometers out there. I suggest you
 get on that has a Minimum & Maximum reading, with outside  & inside 
measuring points.  The unit goes inside the greenhouse, while the wire trails to the outside. 
This lets you know just how hot and cold it's getting. More expensive models (which I have on order)
can actually tell you the times of the day it was the hottest/coldest. If anyone is looking for one, email me. 

I purchased a Reverse Osmosis Unit February 2000 from Sam's Club. It's manufactured by Premier Manufactured Systems Inc. They can be found on the web at http://www.premierh2o.com/ .  I didn't plan on getting one so soon, but the greenhouse was reaching over 95F due to a light winter, and my air conditioner wasn't putting out enough water to keep up.  The picture on the left is the unit by itself, while the picture on the right is my entire setup.  Below is an explanation of how the RO unit works. 

The water comes in from any garden house.  The brand I purchased was initially designed to hook into a kitchen sink, so i just used a closed PVC pipe end that screws onto a garden hose.  The water pressure is high enough that no electricity is required, and there is a pressure valve installed in case the pressure gets too high.  Water first enters the Sediment Filter, then goes through two Carbon Filters.  Afterwards, it will go through a Thin Film Membrane Filter, and 9/10 of the water will be released through a Drain hose that I just allow to drip on the Greenhouse floor.  The remainder of that water goes through the Final Carbon Filter, then drips into my Plastic Trashcan. The unit supposedly releases 5 gallons per day, which will be enough for me if left on continuously.   

Last update 05/01/02

Since 2/22/2000