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  • From: Zachary Domikez <zdomike@yahoo.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] more on greenhouse and season extension
  • Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2007 19:38:42 -0800 (PST)

Hello Paul, and everyone,
I have built several greenhouses and would like to
comment on Dieter's, Pego's, and BobbyG's thoughts -
specifically about heating with air. I understood
Paul to say this is part of living-on-the-land and
trying-to-harvest-there.

If you set up some way to capture heat from the
surrounding earth, and move it with air, then it will
be a quick drain on the system once a cloud passes
over the sunlight, or night falls while you are
otherwise engaged.

In other words, a low-maintenance control system is
very important. You can avoid freezing your plants,
or stunting their growth by controlling the flow of
air, and heat.

As a corollary, Dieter mentioned glass, which is very
expensive, breakable and heavy, so I have used vinyl
(not green in it's fabrication, no, but useful in
construction.) By Vinyl, I mean the flexible roll, UV
resistant, usually sold for tent or truck windows. I
have found this to be twice as long-lasting as
polyethylene.

Next critical subject is 'irrigation,' for another
day.

Best,
Zack
.................................................

growing oranges in Nebraska: the Pit Greenhouse link
> On 2/24/2007 at 1:15 AM Dieter Brand wrote:
>
> >Bobby,
> >
> > I don?t have any experience with underground
> structures,
> > but I?m not sure that you?ll get enough
> sun-exposure if you
> > cover your greenhouse with an earth-roof. It may
> be OK to
> > dig the N, NNW, and NNE directions partly or
> completely
> > into the ground; however, anymore than that is
> likely to
> > result in one-sided growth.
> >
> > Personally, I have been thinking about a
> passive-heated
> > greenhouse for a number of years, but so far
> haven?t had
> > the time to put it into practice.
> >
> > My thinking goes in the direction of using the
> principle of the
> > trombe wall for building a greenhouse base of
> black stones
> > on a South-facing slope. Specifically, I would
> create a level
> > base on the slope by building a base of black
> stones that
> > would extend beneath the entire width of the
> greenhouse,
> > thereby warming the soil from below. A glass pane
> provided
> > at a distance in front of the South-facing base
> of black stones
> > would increase the amount of heat energy first
> stored by the black stones during the day and then
gradually released during the night.
> >
> > The only thing I haven?t figures out is if the
> black stones would need to be in one piece across
the width of the greenhouse,
> > or if the heat would be transmitted from one
> stone to another if these touch each other or if
they are bound by some sort of
> > medium, like sand for example. Any ideas?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Dieter Brand, Portugal
> >
> >



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