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  • From: Leigh Hauter <lhh AT hughes.net>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] greenhouse recommendations?
  • Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2006 07:30:09 -0500

Actually I liked the last one fine enough. Really no judgement one way or the other. I bought it through the local greenhouse supply company, Wetsel. It was sort of a project in process. I like to think of it as an educational project in the nature of evolution.

When I started farming over a decade ago I began seedlings in the window sills of the house. And then a plastic, pvc lento against the side of the house. Then a larger leanto. And then a larger one still and then a sort of make do pvc greenhouse. Finally I bought a 48 foot kit from Wetsel which I erected with my son-in-law. Then added 24 more feet and then added another 24 feet.

At first I heated with little electric heaters, using electric blankets, and more electric blankets covered by plastic. Then I switched to heat tape for the seedlings, then propagation mats.

For the leanto when needed I bought an electric space heater and ran the cord from the house. Once I bought the kit, at first, I put in an old wood stove with the stack going out through a hole in the roof. Then a bigger woodstove with old house fans blowing the heat. Then greenhouse fans. Once the greenhouse got to 96 feet I bought a Modine heater. Finally when I became more prosperous as a farmer and upgraded the heating system in the our home from a woodstove to an outside wood gasification boiler (this is my guess where the fire started, from a spark out of the chimney landing in the dry kindling I had just split the day before laying on the ground outside the woodshed) with radiators and radiant floor heat I changed the heat in the greeenhouse to hot water tubing running down the tables in the greenhouse. a couple weeks ago I added a flash fire propane heater so I could leave home and didn't always have to be out there stuffing the firebox.

Farmtek - I have three 100 foot by 10 foot hoophouse from farmtek. They are definitely the cheapest and the ones I have are fine enough but located too far away from the house, without electricity or much water. The Wetsel greenhouse is, I believe, a
Northern Star and probably, unless something else comes highly recommended I'll just get another one.




At 11:57 AM -0600 12/22/06, TxBeeFarmer wrote:
I know Farmtek has a wide variety to choose from. Could you tell us more
about the one you had. It might help the rest of us if you also say what
you didn't like about the old one. Got any pictures?

TxBeeFarmer
West Texas Zone 7b

----- Original Message -----
From: "Leigh Hauter" <lhh AT hughes.net>
To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 5:21 PM
Subject: [Market-farming] greenhouse recommendations?


Last night we just had a disaster (but, of course, it could have
been worst). A fire somehow started next to a shed (I was not home),
which caught my woodpile which heated up the propane tanks, (that's
about when I came home) which blew, torching my 32X96 greenhouse and
contents. ( found out that one gallon of propane equals ten sticks
of dynamite). Fortunately the wind was blowing away from our home
and fortunately we stuccoed our house several years back so the only
damage to our home, sitting 70 feet away, were windows cracked from
the heat.

So the question is, if I'm going to start over again (and the thought
makes me ill) but with all the toxic chemicals of the melted plastic
and burnt flats (did you know potting soil burns?) in and around the
old greenhouse I don't see rehabing it. I think I had better start
over at a new location. What make of greenhouse do people recommend?
What shape? The last one was about the right size for the seedlings
I need to start in the spring. Do people have a favorite. My last one
was heated by a woodboiler which was cheap on fuel with hot water
running in pipes along the growing tables. Are there better ideas?

Any good ideas would be helpful.
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