Bought a house in Montgomery and the owner left a green house that had been neglected for years. Wife and I cleaned it up and want to give it a try this year. Just basic items like peppers, cherry tomatoes, spinach, green beans, etc. Is there any basic guidelines or tips that yall would give for someone just starting?

Thanks

I built a greenhouse years ago, and it was very enjoyable. Biggest advice I guess is that the temperatures have to be watched. It gets real hot in there if you don't have adequate ventilation during the midday and you have to have some kind of heat to get thru cold nights.

They're great place to store firewood.

It is a good place to start your plants from seed and very much fun. As for as growing and harvesting vegetables not worth the expense of keeping the temperature just right.

I had a little success with tomatoes, but you have to pollinate them with a paintbrush or something.

Thanks. I live close enough to work that I go home at lunch so I should be able to make sure the temperature stays even.

That was exactly our thoughts. Its just tempting to start a ton of seeds because it probably 30ftx6ft.

Read up on aquaponics...oh, and automatic vent openers. My greenhouse will be 12 x 26 when it's done, and is being built almost exclusively to house an aquaponics system.

I would LOVE to have one for aquaponics. I have a small IBC system, been going for about 2 years now. Growing in it basically stops once it gets cold, but I was able to keep tomatoes going in it this year well past Thanksgiving.

'Huntress and I went to see a system over near Phenix City back in November, this guy had some 4 year old tomato plants still producing. Also had bell peppers, jalopenos, rhubarb, buttercrunch lettuce, kale, carrots, tilapia, bluegill, and crawfish in his system.

Ive tried tilapia, but it got too cold outside before they got big enough to eat. I currently have bluegill. They are getting nice and fat. I've also tried crawfish, but they climbed out of the system!

I have grown all sorts of veggies in it. You can grow it much denser and they produce great. My little 3.5 x 3.5 foot aquaponics garden produced the same as a garden MUCH bigger then it.

As to the original poster, post up some pics of the greenhouse. would love to see it.

Do you have the space to build a hoop house over your system? The one I mentioned above was housed in 2 of the biggest PVC/plastic sheeting permanent hoop houses I've ever seen. Most of his back yard is swampy bottom land, and he had to cut a bunch of cypress trees to open it up some. He cut some of the cypress into 3" thick "plates", and that's what the whole system is floored with.

He had his crawfish in raft beds, and tilapia and bluegill in various stages of growth in 4 separate tanks. I kind of wondered about them crawling out, and about them having to come out of the water to moult. I'm planning on going back, sometime, and I've got about a page or page and a half of questions for him, when I do! I'm planning on using bluegill and catfish...Like you, I've heard a lot about tilapia, but bluegill are way too readily available to spend a bunch of money on fish. We have a 2 acre pond on our place, and there's a small river less than half a mile away.

Jono, what do you use for medium in your beds? Are you using expanded clay, or a pH neutral gravel?

Jono Id love to see some pics of your AP setup. I hope to get into it one day.

I use a mix of lava rock and gravel. It was cheap, but it is super heavy. I had to move my system when I moved out of my parents, and that was not a fun endeavor.

As for the greenhouse, I haven't built anything because I always figure once I build something I'll end up moving. 1. We rent a house and want to save up for our own place someday, and 2. (which kind of contradicts the first point) I'm in ministry and you just never know when you will be moving early on in the game.




I'll start a thread in the next couple days and post some pictures. It won't be anything impressive, its small and there is nothing growing right now, but it's always fun to share!

DeadorAlive.My brother told me about that. I will have to look into it. Thanks for the advice. Also, I have no idea what a hoop house is. I will also have to turn to the internet for that.

It's kind of a super cheap DIY greenhouse, made out of PVC pipe and plastic sheeting...

i helped build my bosses 70'x30' greenhouse/high tunnel. after the plastic was on it for a few days i decided to go inside it and i about choked down it was so humid and hot in there

Built my wife one back in the fall, and she loves it