Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: greenhouse

[Tim Mensch (tim-coho-l]

Joanie Connors wrote:
> To avoid overheating, you have to have people who come and open the
> vents every day, or you have to have expensive automatic venting
> systems.
For anyone planning to build a permanent greenhouse, there are some 
pretty inexpensive automatic venting systems:

http://www.groworganic.com/item_SEF110_Automatic_Vent_Opener__Standard.html?welcome=T&theses=4501229

At $38/window, auto-venting two or three strategically placed windows 
shouldn't break the bank. Especially if the entire budget were on the 
order of $5000, which seems high to me; though I'm sure that would get 
you a really nice greenhouse.

Eliot Coleman has lots of cool ideas as to how to create much less 
expensive greenhouse-like structures, some of which can be done for on 
the order of a hundred rather than thousands of dollars:

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Garden/dp/1890132276

I recommend the above for anyone considering doing small-to-medium scale 
organic gardening. He's doing his gardening in Maine, most of it without 
a "real" greenhouse at all, though he does use cold frames (which those 
vent openers above would likely be useful for as well).

Also in answer to Kay's original questions about greenhouses: See 
Coleman's book. He has several ideas ranging from practically-free on, 
and recommends that you start at the easy-and-practically-free end. In 
particular, he claims that if you have a permanent greenhouse, you will 
end up with pest and disease problems that you won't see if the soil and 
plants get direct sun exposure and better air circulation for at least 
part of the year. Structures that have walls that you can remove during 
warmer parts of the year allow natural air and sun cleansing to take 
place, which means fewer disease and pest control treatments are necessary.

Tim
====
No longer in cohousing, but we've been successfully connecting with 
neighbors--15 so far--in a single-family neighborhood. Only one out of 
16 has indicated they wouldn't be interested in connecting in a 
neighborhood group. Community, in suburbia? Why not?

And we're doing our own gardening, though so far without a greenhouse. 
We'll be using (at least) a few cold frames by next winter, though, and 
maybe some of the creative ideas from Coleman's book. Though we live in 
an area that frequently gets 70Mph wind gusts, and sometimes >100Mph, so 
the cheapest ideas probably wouldn't hold up here, unfortunately.