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Teka
Oct 5, 2012

So far I have broccoli, kale, Chinese cabbage, garlic plants, and tomatoes out and have planted lettuce, radish and spinach seeds. Of course the chives are perennial and the rosemary, sage and tarragon. The catnip came back up this year and I did not know it would come back. After the polar vortex hit 4 times I was amazed at anything coming back up.

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Shifty Pony
Dec 28, 2004

Up ta somethin'


I let a few blueberry blossoms slip by on my plants instead of getting every last one for the first year :ssh:



Also my potatoes are going nuts. I'm going to have to mound them before too long.

dwoloz
Oct 20, 2004

Uh uh fool, step back

Tsinava posted:

There are passive ways of repelling aphids. Interplanting your things with different species of Allium (onions, garlic, chives etc.) will ward away common pests such as aphids. Marigolds will do that also, to a greater effect.
People repeat things like this endlessly on the internet (and in some books) and I don't mean to single you specifically out but I have found most companion planting to be bunk. Onions definitely do NOT keep aphids away, in fact, my weakest onions fall prey to black aphids most years. Marigolds the same, no effect. What keeps aphids away are a) healthy plants without a lot of nitrogen and b) lots of predators like ladybugs, parasitic wasps and hover flies. Attractive insectary flowers are much more useful to interplant as they attract the predators. If you see weird looking gold colored non-moving aphids, they have been parasitized by a wasp and you should not spray them as they'll emerge soon as a new aphid destroyer. For us in California, our main problem are Argentine ants that collect sugar from the aphids and protect them from predators. If ants are present, predators generally will not be. Use borax-sugar baits to lure the ants away

Hover fly larva eating aphids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-WWU4Vy6ec
Parasitic wasp and aphids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EAz43qjH9M

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp

dwoloz posted:

People repeat things like this endlessly on the internet (and in some books) and I don't mean to single you specifically out but I have found most companion planting to be bunk. Onions definitely do NOT keep aphids away, in fact, my weakest onions fall prey to black aphids most years. Marigolds the same, no effect. What keeps aphids away are a) healthy plants without a lot of nitrogen and b) lots of predators like ladybugs, parasitic wasps and hover flies. Attractive insectary flowers are much more useful to interplant as they attract the predators.

There are lots of types of pests for plants, just because your companion planting didn't give you clear or immediate effects does not mean that it's bunk.

All species of allium repel certain pests to some degree, which is why it's prudent to inter plant different varieties. If you want a peer-reviewed journal that refers to the efficacy of allium here is one: (Okay since I'm a noob at cache links and didn't know that they're temporary, just google "Comparative Efficacy of Phytopesticides in the Management of Podagrica spp and Mosaic Disease on Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.)" or go here http://www.sciencedomain.org/abstract.php?iid=470&id=2&aid=4054#.Uz6gX_ldW6w , and download the pdf containing the orginal research article or just look at it in a cache)


quote:

Results: All the phytopesticides significantly reduced the flea beetle populations and thecorresponding pest damage on the okra plants than the control (P=0.05). However, neemleaf and garlic extracts were significantly better than the other phytopesticides in reducingthe pest population and the pest damage (P=0.05) resulting in the highest fruit yield.Incidence and severity of the okra mosaic disease were significantly kept under control by the neem, garlic and bougainvillea extracts as compared to the other treatments. Population of the flea beetle was positively and significantly correlated with pest damage (r=0.821; P=0.05), and severity of okra mosaic disease (r=0.786; P=0.05) but negativelycorrelated with fruit yield (r=-0.750; P=0.05). Fruit yield was also negatively and highlycorrelated with pest damage (r=-0.857; P=0.05) and the severity of okra mosaic disease (r=-0.821; P=0.05). Conclusion: Neem leaf and garlic extracts were effective in reducing flea beetle infestation and okra mosaic disease infection, resulting in high fruit yield in okra

Allium species not only contain natural pesticides but they also repel insects that like to eat crops.

Also when I was talking about marigolds I wasn't talking about Calendula, which is a nice insectary itself and also helps with pests, I was talking about the Tagetes genus. Here is a peer-reviewed article talking about how Tagetes marigolds deter all sorts of pests, namely ones that attack roots, including nematodes: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ng045


Every situation with plants have different parameters at play and just because something doesn't work in your garden certainly doesn't mean it won't work in another person's garden.

Tsinava fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Apr 4, 2014

Bean
Sep 9, 2001
I thought about planting blueberry bushes out front instead of regular bushes this year, but then I remembered that I have to use weed killer on both the front and back lawns, so that's probably a no go. Thoughts?

(Both of our dumbass neighbors don't treat for weeds. You can see a literal line of yellow ending at the side of our lawns each year.)

Cpt.Wacky
Apr 17, 2005

Bean posted:

I thought about planting blueberry bushes out front instead of regular bushes this year, but then I remembered that I have to use weed killer on both the front and back lawns, so that's probably a no go. Thoughts?

(Both of our dumbass neighbors don't treat for weeds. You can see a literal line of yellow ending at the side of our lawns each year.)

Based on your attitude this probably isn't the answer you're looking for: stop using weed killer.

Mowing high, leaving the clippings, watering infrequently and deeply, fertilizing and adjusting pH will prevent almost all weed problems. See here for more details: http://www.richsoil.com/lawn-care.jsp

ltr
Oct 29, 2004

dwoloz posted:

People repeat things like this endlessly on the internet (and in some books) and I don't mean to single you specifically out but I have found most companion planting to be bunk. Onions definitely do NOT keep aphids away, in fact, my weakest onions fall prey to black aphids most years.

I had no clue that Allium keeps away aphids until this morning. I have one tomato plant that had aphids, last week I interspersed onion starts around all my plants and this morning I went out and checked and no aphids. As it's not a scientific test, I can't say for sure that it was the onions, but the aphids are all gone now.

So chalk another anecdotal evidence up to Alliums keep away aphids.

Fozzy The Bear
Dec 11, 1999

Nothing much, watching the game, drinking a bud

ltr posted:

I had no clue that Allium keeps away aphids until this morning. I have one tomato plant that had aphids, last week I interspersed onion starts around all my plants and this morning I went out and checked and no aphids. As it's not a scientific test, I can't say for sure that it was the onions, but the aphids are all gone now.

So chalk another anecdotal evidence up to Alliums keep away aphids.

And as a counter point as the person starting this aphid talk, I have aphids all over my carrots, which I planted from seed all around the garlic bed I already had.

Shifty Pony
Dec 28, 2004

Up ta somethin'


Over this week I put in my watering system:







Should work well, although I may have to fiddle with clamps to make sure the potatoes do not get over-watered. I think they'll have pretty high evaporation when mounded though.

Also when is best to start mounding them? They are just standard red potatoes.

ixo
Sep 8, 2004

m'bloaty

Fun Shoe
I planted a bunch of tatsoi and realized I have no idea on earth what it looks like :shobon:. GIS suggests it looks a lot like spinach. Oh, good thing I interspersed the seeds with some spinach seeds too!

...any ideas how to tell the two apart?

Fog Tripper
Mar 3, 2008

by Smythe
Took clippings from last year's apple tree and grape vine. Did the hormone dip, jammed them in dirt and placed them in a cool dark part of the basement.


Now my watch has begun.

Errant Gin Monks
Oct 2, 2009

"Yeah..."
- Marshawn Lynch
:hawksin:
My lettuce is big enough to start cutting in swatches. Spinach is going gangbusters suddenly along with last years chard. Here is what I just pulled out of the beds

Alterian
Jan 28, 2003

Got my first box finally done in my garden makeover and planted a variety of brassicas. I've had issue with cabbage worms in the past and would like to head them off before they start. Would I have to get Reemay, or would some sort of netting be ok?

ghana rheya
Dec 26, 2013
I'm considering building myself a 'hoop/tunnel' greenhouse this year because we still had a frost last night. You take some rebar & pvc pipe and garden plastic (comparable to painters drop cloth) and magic happens and a greenhouse thing results.

Spent all of last year in an apartment and wasn't allowed to have a garden because it was a 'potential fire hazard' due to water preservation/drought reduction bull.

Anyone had any success/failure they might share in using a similar setup?

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
Here's a cool article about heating your greenhouse with compost: http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/heating-a-greenhouse-zmaz86jazgoe.aspx#axzz2y4w0mUBT

It's a very useful set up for extremely cold climates that have harsh winters.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

ghana rheya posted:

I'm considering building myself a 'hoop/tunnel' greenhouse this year because we still had a frost last night. You take some rebar & pvc pipe and garden plastic (comparable to painters drop cloth) and magic happens and a greenhouse thing results.

Spent all of last year in an apartment and wasn't allowed to have a garden because it was a 'potential fire hazard' due to water preservation/drought reduction bull.

Anyone had any success/failure they might share in using a similar setup?

Hell yeah success. The part you are missing is building the ends of it, which you can easily and cheaply do out of plywood and 1x2s.



You can totally get away with cheap plastic, but the right stuff isn't much more expensive and lasts longer.

The hoops of mine are made out of EMT and shaped to let the snow fall off....that may or may not be important to you depending on where you are. But I get an extra moth or more on each side of the growing season out of this thing.

Alterian
Jan 28, 2003

ghana rheya posted:

I'm considering building myself a 'hoop/tunnel' greenhouse this year because we still had a frost last night. You take some rebar & pvc pipe and garden plastic (comparable to painters drop cloth) and magic happens and a greenhouse thing results.

I don't know how successful ours are going to be because we're building them into our new gardens this year, but I've come up with a pretty easy way to set up the hoops into a raised bed. I'll take a pic later today.

That Works
Jul 22, 2006

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy


Motronic posted:

Hell yeah success. The part you are missing is building the ends of it, which you can easily and cheaply do out of plywood and 1x2s.



You can totally get away with cheap plastic, but the right stuff isn't much more expensive and lasts longer.

The hoops of mine are made out of EMT and shaped to let the snow fall off....that may or may not be important to you depending on where you are. But I get an extra moth or more on each side of the growing season out of this thing.

Sorry but what is EMT?

Zuph
Jul 24, 2003
Zupht0r 6000 Turbo Type-R

Breaky posted:

Sorry but what is EMT?

Electrical Metallic Tubing. Metal wire conduit.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

Breaky posted:

Sorry but what is EMT?

Sorry, should have been more clear, but Zuph is right. It's Electric metal tubing.

It's cheap, common and there is a whole ecosystem of tools (benders, cutters, etc) and parts (brackets, joints). So you can do things like this easily:



Now that it's light out, I took some inside shots so ghana can see the very simple construction (this took me a weekend, and wouldn't have even taken that if I weren't being spergy about painting the ends).






Yes, it's "evolved" over the years to have power and water run to it, and it's where the zone valves for the irrigation system got installed (one for the garden outside, one for inside the hoop house). I've also got temp and humidity sensors for outside, inside, and the compost bin. Sometimes I just don't know when to stop.

Motronic fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Apr 6, 2014

Fart Car '97
Jul 23, 2003

Motronic posted:

Sorry, should have been more clear, but Zuph is right. It's Electric metal tubing.

It's cheap, common and there is a whole ecosystem of tools (benders, cutters, etc) and parts (brackets, joints). So you can do things like this easily:



Now that it's light out, I took some inside shots so ghana can see the very simple construction (this took me a weekend, and wouldn't have even taken that if I weren't being spergy about painting the ends).





Yes, it's "evolved" over the years to have power and water run to it, and it's where the zone valves for the irrigation system got installed (one for the garden outside, one for inside the hoop house). I've also got temp and humidity sensors for outside, inside, and the compost bin. Sometimes I just don't know when to stop.

Thats really cool and you should post some not-tiny pictures and give us a walkthrough of the whole setup.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

Fart Car '97 posted:

Thats really cool and you should post some not-tiny pictures and give us a walkthrough of the whole setup.

I'll take some decent pics in the next week or so as things start happening. For now, you can click on those to embiggen. (ninja edit: no, you can't and I don't know why. They are imgur so I'll go back and fix the links). Edit edit: now you can click on them for larger.

Cpt.Wacky
Apr 17, 2005

ghana rheya posted:

I'm considering building myself a 'hoop/tunnel' greenhouse this year because we still had a frost last night. You take some rebar & pvc pipe and garden plastic (comparable to painters drop cloth) and magic happens and a greenhouse thing results.

Spent all of last year in an apartment and wasn't allowed to have a garden because it was a 'potential fire hazard' due to water preservation/drought reduction bull.

Anyone had any success/failure they might share in using a similar setup?



I've been doing this for the last few years in my 5x20 bed at home. 10' 1/2" PVC pipe bent over 2' rebar pound half way into the ground. Large binder clips secure 5 mil plastic sheeting to the hoops. It keeps the rain off the soil in the spring so it dries out faster and warms the soil up quicker so I can plant a little sooner. During the summer it's good for heat-loving crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, melons, etc.

Depending on your climate it can get really hot in there. I usually leave the ends open and in the summer and sometimes lift the sides up partially.

Spring and Fall here tend to have strong winds and more than once the tunnel hoops have been blown partially off the rebar. Fighting that thing in the wind in the middle of the night isn't fun. Big heavy rocks pinning the sides down seem to be the most effective so far.

You'll want some type of irrigation set up inside so that you don't have to unclip plastic and lift it up to water every time. I use soaker hoses inside mine.

jvick
Jun 24, 2008

WE ARE
PENN STATE

ghana rheya posted:

I'm considering building myself a 'hoop/tunnel' greenhouse this year because we still had a frost last night. You take some rebar & pvc pipe and garden plastic (comparable to painters drop cloth) and magic happens and a greenhouse thing results.

Spent all of last year in an apartment and wasn't allowed to have a garden because it was a 'potential fire hazard' due to water preservation/drought reduction bull.

Anyone had any success/failure they might share in using a similar setup?

I built a larger greenhouse last fall. The main purpose being to protect my fiance's succulents from freezing and keeping some winter veggies. It served it's purpose and I totally over built the drat thing.

I searched youtube and got some basic plans from there. The plans are for an 8' wide structure, but she wanted to cover both raised beds which is 13' wide. I used 16' cattle fencing as the roof structure, and basic 2x4's for everything else.





I had to take the plastic off already because it was getting over 90* with the warm California days. If you're going to do your own, I highly recommend getting some kind of fan in there or something to circulate the air.

Tsinava
Nov 15, 2009

by Ralp
You guys have some very picturesque greenhouses!



I've seen one just like this before, except the lady didn't pull plastic over it but she let grapes grow all over it instead and turned it into a shade garden for her mushrooms, strawberries, and various other greens. She even had ginger growing in there.

Hummingbirds
Feb 17, 2011

Just wanted to brag that I got a few carambola (starfruit) seeds to sprout. :)

That Works
Jul 22, 2006

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy


It begins!

Finally the snow has melted and we've had enough good weather for the ground to fully thaw.

The raised beds


One of the existing grape vines and one of the pear trees on the right.


This spot is full of all kinds of broken brick and stonework, making it a nightmare to do much with the soil as is. Also it had been left to grow over with every kind of grass and knotweed. Going to till over just a bit of this as its a shady spot when the pear trees grow in full and just plant arugula and some broccoli / lettuces over here in a shallow layer of soil over the mess.

You can see the other pear tree here center left.

The dirt showed up today. No finished shot but ended up having a nice amount left over and will set up a few squash mounds around different parts of the yard.

Ceros_X
Aug 6, 2006

U.S. Marine
This may be a stupid question but is there any possibility of doing a small raised bed garden in the back of a pickup truck? I have been thinking about doing something small that I can mess around with during lunch - I just don't know what I would plant that is edible, can withstand a lot of direct sunlight and tolerate acceleration and breaking. (Located in Eastern NC if that helps).

Any suggestions on implementation and plant section?

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
Breaky, that looks really cool! Nice work! Are those pear trees mature? I hear they take forever to bear fruit (plant pears for your heirs yadda yadda).

Has anyone grown edible sedums (a.k.a. stonecrops)? They seem like they should be relatively simple. As a follow-up, in case the answer is "yes!", are there any decent online sellers for said sedum?

We bought our first house in November, and I am so excited to finally move beyond container gardening. I have a pack of plants that survived the winter thanks to some grow lights, and I am building raised beds in our front and back yard.

Ceros, as far as plant selection goes, maybe look at some hardy herbs that tolerate pruning (rosemary, sage, mint) and maybe even things like salad radishes (things that don't need a lot of depth, and can tolerate heat). If your spring and autumn are relatively cool, greens like amaranth and kale would probably do fairly well. I grew them in half barrels. Taller plants like tomatoes would probably be right out due to the acceleration like you said. It would be kind of interesting if you found you could grow small varieties of melon and cukes. A melonmobile would be awesome. I bet you could probably do strawberries, even.

SpannerX
Apr 26, 2010

I had a beer with Stephen Harper once and now I like him.

Fun Shoe

Ceros_X posted:

This may be a stupid question but is there any possibility of doing a small raised bed garden in the back of a pickup truck? I have been thinking about doing something small that I can mess around with during lunch - I just don't know what I would plant that is edible, can withstand a lot of direct sunlight and tolerate acceleration and breaking. (Located in Eastern NC if that helps).

Any suggestions on implementation and plant section?

It's been done, but the issue is you are going to kill your gas mileage.
The first link is to a video a a truck that supposidly does run, hell I think it's burning bio-diesel, but they don't show it running

That Works
Jul 22, 2006

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy


RedTonic posted:

Breaky, that looks really cool! Nice work! Are those pear trees mature? I hear they take forever to bear fruit (plant pears for your heirs yadda yadda).

Has anyone grown edible sedums (a.k.a. stonecrops)? They seem like they should be relatively simple. As a follow-up, in case the answer is "yes!", are there any decent online sellers for said sedum?

We bought our first house in November, and I am so excited to finally move beyond container gardening. I have a pack of plants that survived the winter thanks to some grow lights, and I am building raised beds in our front and back yard.

Ceros, as far as plant selection goes, maybe look at some hardy herbs that tolerate pruning (rosemary, sage, mint) and maybe even things like salad radishes (things that don't need a lot of depth, and can tolerate heat). If your spring and autumn are relatively cool, greens like amaranth and kale would probably do fairly well. I grew them in half barrels. Taller plants like tomatoes would probably be right out due to the acceleration like you said. It would be kind of interesting if you found you could grow small varieties of melon and cukes. A melonmobile would be awesome. I bet you could probably do strawberries, even.

Thank you!

As far as I know the pears and grapevines are all at least 30+ years old. Both pear trees drop more fruit than we could give away and they were nice Bartlett's too. Grapes seem to be just Concord, we moved in just after they finished dropping fruit so we missed them but will get them this September. We pruned back both of them a lot when we got here so I expect that we will get a big yield this season.

I'm finishing the rest of the dirt this afternoon and putting in some cold tolerant direct seed stuff today.

Edit: Updating for more content. Went to get supplies including soak hoses and mulch. Store had a 5/$10 sale on some plants. I needed to get lavender, ended up getting that along with brussels sprouts, cauliflower, spinach and some romaine lettuce. I wasn't planning on growing most of those and had the rest in seed but figured what the hell.

Soak hoses going in, covered the front bed with black mulch and already have planted brussels and cauliflower.


The front strip is marked with some old granite/ slate slabs which were buried in the yard. When it gets warmer the plan is to put in a row of sunflowers here to block the yard view from the street a little more. The mound in the middle between the two rose bushes was just leftover soil and I just mounded it there and will plant some of the extra stuff from the flats I bought as well as probably put in a trellis and run some of the climbing peas and/or pole beans there.


The greens bed. This was a much shallower layer of new soil over a rock/ weed infested permanent bed that gets a good bit more shade than the raised beds in the back. So, I'm mostly just going to be growing arugula and other salad greens here. Planted in the front are the romaine and some spinach. We'll see how they do.


By the end of the week I'll have the beans and peas sown along with carrots, beets, broccoli and collard greens.

That Works fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Apr 9, 2014

psychotic
Dec 25, 2005
satan's deadly nutsack

Hummingbirds posted:

Just wanted to brag that I got a few carambola (starfruit) seeds to sprout. :)

ah well done! starfruit are soooo good

its April now, which around here means things are cooling off quickly for autumn. the tomatoes are still going nuts and my black mission figs are finally ripening.
the worst part is by the time I get home its quite dark. I was given a polycarbonate greenhouse for Christmas (the single worst thing we've ever had to put together) although the second it was up I loved it.
I got some solar lights attached to a solar panel from a sale site, which means I can potter around anyway
the luxury winter pie pumpkin is coming along well. I cant get the plant to support more than one fruit, but that's okay
the watermelons are growing too.
the little white tags have ladybug eggs, got them from an online company who claim their ladybugs are reared in an insectary, and not collected from the wild.
im a bit nervous because they've only just arrived, I keep checking to see if I can see the little buggers crawling around.

does anyone have much experience pruning fruit trees? I have a double grafted cherry tree which I should probably prune. do I wait until winter? and is it okay to cut the centre branch? ive never trimmed a tree this big and don't want to hurt it.
also what are peoples thoughts on bumblebee hives? I found an online place that sells them (possibly only to commercial growers, im not sure yet)I thought it might be cool to have one in summer

Motronic posted:

neat greenhouse
that's so cool, how do you deal with ventilation in the summer? or in the winter when you are trying to keep the warm air in, but also enough air circulating to try and keep fungal infection away?

SpannerX
Apr 26, 2010

I had a beer with Stephen Harper once and now I like him.

Fun Shoe

psychotic posted:


also what are peoples thoughts on bumblebee hives? I found an online place that sells them (possibly only to commercial growers, im not sure yet)I thought it might be cool to have one in summer.

Here's a whole thread on bee keeping. It's pretty good. Wish I could do it around here.

Marchegiana
Jan 31, 2006

. . . Bitch.
If you're going to remove the central leader on a fruit tree (which is a very common practice so the trees grow out instead of up) the best time to do it is just at the very end of winter, right before it comes out of dormancy. You want the tree to be dormant so it doesn't lose any of the stored energy in growing a part of the tree you're going to remove, but you also have to have the tree be able to recover and start healing the cut ASAP. Usually the best time is about a 2 week window before the buds start to swell.

Fog Tripper
Mar 3, 2008

by Smythe

psychotic posted:


does anyone have much experience pruning fruit trees? I have a double grafted cherry tree which I should probably prune. do I wait until winter? and is it okay to cut the centre branch? ive never trimmed a tree this big and don't want to hurt it.

Once the tree is well dormant IIRC is the best time to do it. You'll be shocked at how growth explodes after a good pruning.

I mainly have aspens here. 2 were near death. I removed the worst one entirely and cut nearly every branch off the other (had heavy deer rub damage to the trunk). The latter tree is now as big as the others in my yard. New growth was about 3-4 feet in a month or two. Mind you I did this in the middle of last summer when they were NOT dormant, as I had planned just to remove the branches to make it easier to remove the whole tree. Got lazy and left it as is though.

In regards to my fruit trees I just followed a couple decent youtube videos. When dormant I trimmed off any branches less than 45º angles, and any that crowded others. Basically have an idea after removing the <45º how you want it to look when finished. You're pretty much looking to train a number of branches to be strong with new growth on them.

We have pruning sealer which I used on the above mentioned aspens and other trees that I trim the unhealthy stuff off of. When dormant I just let the wounds heal over on their own.

Marchegiana posted:

If you're going to remove the central leader on a fruit tree (which is a very common practice so the trees grow out instead of up) the best time to do it is just at the very end of winter, right before it comes out of dormancy. You want the tree to be dormant so it doesn't lose any of the stored energy in growing a part of the tree you're going to remove, but you also have to have the tree be able to recover and start healing the cut ASAP. Usually the best time is about a 2 week window before the buds start to swell.

Yah, our fruits are still pretty low height-wise. Will eventually be cutting back the main once they get to a good height.


Just bought my wife a tart/sour cherry tree yesterday. On one hand she hates that I bought yet another tree, on the other she loves her sour cherry pies.

Fog Tripper fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Apr 10, 2014

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

psychotic posted:

that's so cool, how do you deal with ventilation in the summer? or in the winter when you are trying to keep the warm air in, but also enough air circulating to try and keep fungal infection away?

I've got multiple ways to ventilate, but all of them can still use improvement......nothing in there is ever truly "finished."

The easiest way is to simply pull up the plastic. I typically roll it up to the side boards and hold it in place with some painter's tape, which you can see in this photo:



Since that side is outside of the garden fence I put some hardware cloth from the side board to the ground. I can also completely pull off the plastic if I want because an awesome little setup I found in a greenhouse catalog which is apparently quite common and cheap:



It's called "wiggle wire". It's just an aluminum channel with the wire you can see in it. You can cut it to length and just "wiggle" the wire in and it holds the plastic tight. I have the wire cut so that I can remove a piece that goes from each side board to the ground.

Previously I was using "batten tape" and stapling the plastic to the ends and side boards, with the side board to ground section having some velcro. It worked.....eh.

Those channels are double depth so I can put another layer of plastic and wiggle wire in them for overwintering. I've got some plans for that as well.......I'm working on a small inflation blower that will keep air between the layers of plastic. Supposedly it works surprisingly well for insulation. I've got the sensors in there to find out for real......

Other ventilation includes fans. One that just blows air around inside, and one exhaust fan on a thermostat:





The thermostatically controlled one is nice for that "oh crap, I forgot to open the door/lift the plastic and it got really hot out", but it gets quickly overwhelmed if it's too hot. I should put another fan in as well (on that same wall) and a set of shutters on the opposite wall that will open when there is a negative pressure inside. Maybe this year.......

Spring/fall/winter is tougher. The inside fan runs all the time, and sometimes you just need to go out there and open things up at the right time of day that blow out the humidity (which is another reason I track humidity/temp inside).

Bonus shot of the irrigation valves:



The top one is for the inside, the bottom for the outside. They are 24v AC valves, so the controller has to be powered on and sending power to them for them to be open. Lots of the consumer level valves are commanded to open or close, meaning they will stay open if something bad happens after they've been turned on like a power outage or just a simple valve solenoid/wiring problem.

You can also see the filter/pressure reducer and each valve has a back flow preventer on it's output side. They are up high on purpose (more back flow prevention). I'm hoping to set up some sort of liquid fertilizer injector this year (to distribute fish emulsion).

That's all controlled by a boring looking black box with a bunch of wires coming out of it and a rain sensor:



The rain sensor is a very simple device that you manually set to a certain amount. It has 2 wires. When it's below that amount/dry the wires are shorted. When it's "wet" the circuit opens.

That gets fed to the black box, which can be controlled like this:



I started out with a much simpler zone controller, but it was a piece of junk that kept eating it's supposed "backup battery" which would then corrupt the programming, requiring a reset and a convoluted 10 minutes process to reprogram all the zones. I installed this one last spring and I can't be any happier with it.

That's about it for now. The temp/humidity sensors aren't working, as the crappy laptop I put out there has died......which is no surprise based on the environment. I tend to have piles of nasty old laptops around so I don't mind that they only last a couple of years. But this year I'm "upgrading" to something that should last a bit longer. Once I get that in place and have some data to show I'll post a bit about it.

Motronic fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Apr 10, 2014

AlistairCookie
Apr 1, 2010

I am a Dinosaur
Motronic :aaaaa: I am duly impressed with your entire set up. I think you may have given Mr. Cookie both a construction and programming project for next season. Thanks for the detailed posts!

Shifty Pony
Dec 28, 2004

Up ta somethin'


That is just amazing. Really impressive.

My potatoes keep growing too fast and I'm probably going to have to go buy dirt to keep earthing them up. People here said that potatoes grew really well here but yeesh.

psychotic
Dec 25, 2005
satan's deadly nutsack
Thanks guys, I tried searching for information on pruning but everything I found said to prune at a different time of year.
I'll wait until the end of winter and give it a go.

Motronic, I'm jealous of your set up! you'll have to keep us updated with the inflation blower during winter
The roof vent, solar extractor fan and opening the door of my greenhouse are the only ways I have to keep the temperature down in summer. That was fine though, and the plants loved the heat.
I'm a sign writer and managed to get massive rolls of bubble wrap through work, I'm waiting for a sunny day to wrap the greenhouse before winter.

My luxury winter pumpkin seems to be having a problem with powdery mildew which I've been trying to deal with. I was using neem oil but am now trying not to spray with the ladybird eggs in the area. is there a fungus spray that will help with the powdery mildew but not hurt the ladybugs?

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Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

psychotic posted:

Motronic, I'm jealous of your set up!

Thank you and everyone else for the nice comments. I didn't really think it was that big of a deal because it all started out slowly (just the hoop house for a year) and then I just keep adding onto it. It's been 5 seasons now and I just keep on tinkering. But listing everything out like this....yeah...I guess I have gone a little crazy with it.

The important part is that I've not spent much on it. Just about everything in there other than the irrigation setup and exhaust fan are leftovers/hacked up stuff that I had laying around and happened to think "huh....I can put this HERE!". The exhaust fan and thermostat are about the only proper "greenhouse" equipment in there, and only because they were on closeout at Grower's Supply :)

Also, irrigation isn't expensive, especially if you can live with a single zone to begin with. So if anyone is interested or wants more information on building a drip system please ask and I'll let you know what I figured out the hard way as it applies to what you might be trying to accomplish.


psychotic posted:

The roof vent

I've been racking my brains on and off trying to figure out how I could possibly put a roof vent on this thing. It would severely complicate "just throwing the plastic over" but would be SO useful. I know I could come up with some kind of solenoid to open/close it based on temperature, but I'm afraid that's just not something reasonable based on this type of construction. It makes me want to rebuild this as a hard-sided greenhouse :)

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