# December greenhouse harvest



## begreen (Dec 26, 2011)

The Marconi peppers finally turned red just as the plant started dropping leaves. This is a real treat and very Christmassy.


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## WellSeasoned (Dec 26, 2011)

Very nice. And some herbs. How many degrees warmer is the greenhouse compared to outside temps? Is your green house attached to your house or separate free standing?


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## begreen (Dec 26, 2011)

It's freestanding. Temps vary with the weather, but we have had an unseasonably dry December. That's helped daytime temps to go up to around 65-70 in the greenhouse. Nightime drops to about 10 degrees over ambient. Fortunately it has not dropped to lower than about 30F this winter so far, so nightime temps in the greenhouse are in the 40's. The herbs are rosemary which is outdoors and a pretty tough plant. In the greenhouse, the lime plants seem pretty happy too this winter.


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## EatenByLimestone (Dec 26, 2011)

That is a treat!


Matt


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## colebrookman (Dec 26, 2011)

Just finished a blueberry pie, home made with our own wild blues. Also plenty of raspberries in the freezer for pies and muffins. They taste even better in the middle of winter after a day cutting wood.  Be safe.
Ed


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## woodchip (Dec 26, 2011)

Those are beautiful peppers, really nice pictures of them too. 

And it shows growing your own really does pay off when you can produce great quality food in your own backyard.

Hopefully it'll inspire others to have a try, I'm certainly going to make more effort growing peppers next year, I already have the seeds......  ;-)


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## Seasoned Oak (Dec 26, 2011)

How big is it? Do you provide any supplemental heat to the greenhouse when the temps get to low? Also attaching your sunspace to your house is a great heat maker on sunny winter days ,it heats my house to about 78 on most sunny winter days. ALso any heat lost off the house overnight goes right into the sunspace. i wish mine were bigger. Its about 24 x6 All i grow at the moment is parsley and lime trees which i wheel inside the house overnight. The desert palm stays.


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## begreen (Dec 26, 2011)

It's 10x24'. Our old Jotul 602 is in the greenhouse for supplemental heat, but it hasn't been fired up this year so far. I have 5 dark garbage cans filled with water that helps stabilize the temps a bit too. We couldn't attach the greenhouse with our house layout, but my sister has an attached greenhouse that is designed to supplement house heat. It does a nice job of keeping the house warm when it's sunny outside. With R10 glass, it also holds the heat pretty well overnight.


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## woodchip (Dec 26, 2011)

I can imagine a greenhouse with an old wood stove with back boiler feeding a thermal store to keep things frost free. 

That could be a doable diy project for someone who had thought about doing a thermal store for the house, but wanted experience first. 

Just typing that has made me start thinking..........  ;-)


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## dumbodog00 (Dec 27, 2011)

Any pictures of the greenhouse?  I would eventually like to put someting in at our house and I am always looking for ideas.


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## pen (Dec 28, 2011)

Look great BG.

Need to do some greenhouse talk w/ you if you are willing.

pen


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## raybonz (Dec 28, 2011)

BG that is awesome!! I practically drooled with those beautiful veggies on my screen lol.. I would love to have fresh tomatoes right about now!

Ray


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## laynes69 (Dec 29, 2011)

Someday I will have a nice greenhouse built. I would like to have one attached to our home, but the wife doesn't like the idea. Those marconi peppers are my favorite. Some of the ones picked from the garden this year were the size of a quart mason jar. Good flavor!


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## TMonter (Dec 29, 2011)

Nice harvest BG, I'm envious that you can get stuff like that this late in the season. One of these days I'd love to have a greenhouse I can do that with. IN the meantime we only use ours as a seed starting device in about March.

Post some pictures of your setup if you get a chance.


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## spirilis (Dec 30, 2011)

I remember seeing pics in one of the many articles about Rocket Stove Mass Heaters where someone built a rocket mass heater for his greenhouse with a cob thermal mass, worked out well since there was plenty of dirt available from the landscaping.  Sounds like it'd be a nice structure to try your hand at the craft of rocket mass heaters...


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## begreen (Dec 30, 2011)

Here's an earlier thread with pictures of the greenhouse. It's still a work in progress. I hope to add a new bed to the middle this spring. 

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/56115/


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## Cazimere (Dec 30, 2011)

Very nice setup. Do you hand pollinate your tomatos ?


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## begreen (Dec 30, 2011)

Thanks! In the cooler weather, yes. It's pretty easy. I just give the tomato plant a gentle shake daily. Our cucumbers do a pretty good job of self pollinating. The eggplants need a bit more manual pollinating.


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## TMonter (Dec 30, 2011)

What kind of greenhouse is that BG?

Also my wife is interested in the ground cloth that you see there in the picture.


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## begreen (Dec 31, 2011)

The greenhouse is home built from scratch using windows and doors from our 2006 house remodel. If the wife is interested, there are less expensive routes to take. The ground cloth is heavy-duty, commercial, nursery landscape fabric. It's much tougher than the ordinary, big box stuff.


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## TMonter (Dec 31, 2011)

BeGreen said:
			
		

> The greenhouse is home built from scratch using windows and doors from our 2006 house remodel. If the wife is interested, there are less expensive routes to take. The ground cloth is heavy-duty, commercial, nursery landscape fabric. It's much tougher than the ordinary, big box stuff.



Well for now we have an aluminum greenhouse that works great as a shoulder season and seed starting setup. Later this year we'll have to see about getting some of that garden fabric. I'm slowly renovating our property as I have time.


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## edge-of-the-woods (Jan 12, 2016)

begreen said:


> It's 10x24'. Our old Jotul 602 is in the greenhouse for supplemental heat, but it hasn't been fired up this year so far. I have 5 dark garbage cans filled with water that helps stabilize the temps a bit too. We couldn't attach the greenhouse with our house layout, but my sister has an attached greenhouse that is designed to supplement house heat. It does a nice job of keeping the house warm when it's sunny outside. With R10 glass, it also holds the heat pretty well overnight.



I know this is a super-old post, but I am curious if you have any other details on how the attached greenhouse helps supplement the house heat.  We have an attached greenhouse as well, and it's about 50 degrees in the mornings at this time of year.  I've been telling myself that it gets up warmer during the day, and so it's heat-neutral


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## begreen (Jan 12, 2016)

Our greenhouse is freestanding. It stays above freezing down to about 25F if the daytime is sunny. The sun heats it up to 70F when it's 35F outside. That is only for a few hours due to the low angle of the sun and hill to the south + big fir trees shading it. 

My sister has an attached greenhouse in which they invested in R=10 glass. It truly does warm their house during the daytime. At night they have a fire going in a wall stove/pizza oven. The backside of that wall is in the greenhouse and keeps it at a nice temp in there.


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## edge-of-the-woods (Jan 12, 2016)

Thanks!  The attached one is what I am wondering about. 

This is a pic of ours (okay it's of the dogs, but you can see the greenhouse in it).




The greenhouse is attached to the mudroom, and separated from the house by a big sliding glass door.  The previous owners had it full of orchids, with two space heaters in it.  Ours is unheated, apart from what heat it gets through that doorway.

No idea what the R-value of the existing glass is, and I think re-glazing it with R-10 glass might cost an arm and a leg.  I was thinking about adding a layer of polycarb panels on the inside, but can't find anything online that tells me if that's a terribleidea or not.

http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/...nel-8mm-clear/greenhouse-polycarbonate-sheets


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## begreen (Jan 12, 2016)

Nice! Yes, the R10 glass was expensive, but my sis and BIL are obsessive about keeping heating costs low. Their house is tightly sealed with staggered 2x4 construction for 8" wall insulation. They heat the place in mid NY on less than 2 cords of wood typcially.


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## jb6l6gc (Jan 12, 2016)

Beauty setup bg


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## begreen (Jan 12, 2016)

Thanks, the backside (road side) looks like a cottage. I was lucky to get some old growth cedar rough shakes for this project. They are aging very nicely now.






Won't be long now before 2016 plants are getting started.


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## edge-of-the-woods (Jan 13, 2016)

begreen said:


> Thanks! In the cooler weather, yes. It's pretty easy. I just give the tomato plant a gentle shake daily. Our cucumbers do a pretty good job of self pollinating. The eggplants need a bit more manual pollinating.



Thanks!!

Wow, that is a beautiful setup.  I like the pics of your cedar shakes, too, it's amazing.

So you can pollinate the tomatoes by hand just by giving them a daily shake?  I didn't plant any more after our initial fruitless attempt at greenhouse tomatoes, because I read that you need to buzz them a few times a day with an electric toothbrush to simulate the vibrations from a pollinating insect's wing, and that seemed a little crazy.  Do the eggplants require more shaking, or do you have to physically move pollen around?


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## begreen (Jan 13, 2016)

Thanks. Yes, tomatoes are easy to pollinate. Eggplants are later and by then our greenhouse is wide open. There seem to be enough pollinators around then to take care them. However, if the greenhouse was closed or had screens then yes, I would probably hand pollinate them. A small watercolor paintbrush works fine for this purpose.


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