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[Lynn Wigglesworth <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>]

My greenhouse is a large converted metal dairy barn. It's set up like 
the Solviva greenhouse, with the whole north side heavily insulated and 
the south side double glazed (Lexan and one sheet of greenhouse 
plastic). It has concrete floors. I have 20 or 25 55-gallon drums of 
water for additional thermal mass, and a small fan that blows hot air 
through a pipe from the ridge to the area where the barrels are.

I haven't been able to keep it above freezing in the winter. It gets 
down into the 20's, which I guess isn't too bad when it's below 0 out. I 
have a coal stove in there, but stoking the stove at 11pm on a snowing 
night got old fast, and didn't keep it warm enough to actually grow 
anything. I sense that it has so much potential, and it frustrates me 
that I can't make it work the way I want. Figs love it in there, so my 
current thinking is to start a fig plantation.

Lynn Wigglesworth
Tioga County, PA

VAN DELL JORDAN wrote:
> --- On Sat, 9/20/08, Lynn Wigglesworth  wrote:
> 
>> I do have a greenhouse, but it's more for starting
>> plants in the spring. 
>> It doesn't make sense to add expensive heat and lights
>> for a few 
>> tomatoes in the winter. 
> 
> Have you ever considered some kind of solar heating??  I happen to have a 
> large concrete slab on the outside of my barn.  Thinking in that situation 
> it might be easy to build a heated greenhouse.  Don't know how effective 
> solar heat might be in other situations.
> Van Dell
> 
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