Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: greenhouse

[Darien (darien]

About five or six years ago we put a small attached greenhouse  
enclosing our south facing front porch. (Individual home on the  
Central Coast of Calif.) It is about 8' x 12' and connects to the  
house with a big picture window.

We have used the wax-based automatic window openers, bought from  
Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, and they work GREAT. One of them has  
lasted well the five years it's been on the window. I think that  
situating the openers to take advantage of prevailing breezes is key.

Occasionally we have had an outbreak of whiteflies, and sometimes  
snails get in there. But with lots of air circulation, and open  
windows, and good insectary plants (flowering plants such as alyssum,  
parsley and other carrot-family plants, cosmos, etc) the beneficial  
and predator insects come in and keep the pests in check. Well, I do  
have to hand pick the snails.

In our climate the biggest benefit has been year-round growing of  
sweet peppers, and hot peppers too. I have three year old sweet  
peppers in there still producing; all I do is occasionally put compost  
on them, prune them a little, and water them. We get a much longer  
tomato season by having a few cherry tomato plants in there; sometimes  
we'll get tomatoes from May to December. We can grow better hot  
weather crops (like peppers and cucumbers) in the greenhouse in the  
summer than we can outside, due to our cool summer nights and year- 
round fog. In the winter we can grow carrots, scallions, and greens  
(it can even get too hot for lettuce etc.). Italian parsley loves the  
greenhouse all year, I get huge plants that self-sow. I have several  
plants in there now, volunteer progeny from my original planting 4 or  
5 years ago.

Two things I regret: not having put a faucet in the greenhouse, I  
either have to fill buckets up and hand water or drag a hose in the  
door; and not reading the "Greenhouse Gardener's Companion" by Shane  
Smith before building it. We had it custom built by a contractor, so  
it was not inexpensive, despite using recycled windows as much as we  
could. The "Greenhouse Gardener's Companion" has information about  
construction that would have improved our design some. And it has  
every other information you would need, about plants, soil, calendar,  
climate, etc. If the information isn't in there he will tell you where  
to find it.

As it is attached to the south wall of our house, and there is a large  
picture window in the wall, we've had the added benefit of increasing  
the passive solar heating in house. On a sunny winter day, I can open  
the window between the house and greenhouse and it will warm up the  
room considerably. We also kept a small tank, painted black, of water  
in the greenhouse, and painted the cement porch floor a dark brick  
red, to provide passive heating. The coldest the greenhouse gets in a  
winter night here has been 40°; the temperature outside can get down  
to about 28°.

I'd like to have an even larger greenhouse, to grow bananas! It is a  
wonderful place to sit on a cool but sunny morning and have my tea.

Darien Payne