Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us>]

Debbie Mcdonald wrote:
> Have any of you a solar greehouse? I have a bunch of barrels and I remembered 
> reading about lining the bottom of a greenhouse with them full of water to 
> heat it some but? I am having trouble imagining it:)


My Greenhouse section begins at
http://themodernhomestead.us/article/Greenhouse.html

I've experimented with the water-thermal-mass concept. Not sure it's 
ever paid off that much in terms of keeping the temp up--but then, it 
would be next to impossible to prove that one, one way or the other, in 
a single home greenhouse.

At the moment I'm trying to keep top growth on a fig tree alive by 
surrounding it with 5-gal buckets of water and blankets over the top. 
(One year I had a 55-gal drum of water beside the fig--top growth leafed 
out in the spring--next winter I did not, top growth died, plant had to 
re-establish from the roots, big delay in fruiting.)

Another water-thermal application is making my "hot box" for starting 
warm season transplants. See
http://themodernhomestead.us/article/Greenhouse+Hotbox.html

If you invest in a greenhouse, you will never regret it.

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Virginia
www.themodernhomestead.us

The threat of nuclear weapons and man's ability to destroy the environment 
are really alarming. And yet there are other almost imperceptible changes--I 
am thinking of the exhaustion of our natural resources, and especially of 
soil erosion--and these are perhaps more dangerous still, because once we 
begin to feel their repercussions it will be too late.  ~The Dalai Lama