Greenhouse

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Preparation Forum : One Thread

For survival purposes the cheapest and most effective greenhouse is a lean-to built on the south side of your dwelling. Not only is the greenhouse shielded from north winds, but there can be a great deal of solar gain on sunny winter days. If a 10' or 12' rafter is used no support is needed beyond the stud wall. A 12' by 32' gh is a very useful structure. The floor is important and should be 6" of sawdust. Sawdust insulates, humidifies, feeds earthworms, minimizes weed problems and breaks down into topsoil. Other organic materials (mulches) are also acceptable. On the garden web forums you can retrieve a thread on pots for bedding plants made of newspaper. These pots are HIGHLY effective and grow better plants than can purchased today. My website at http://www.azalea.net/~smueller contains photos and further discussion of this set-up. It is not a commercial site.

-- Sand Mueller (smueller@azalea.net), July 10, 1999

Answers

We put up a 30'x16' lean-to greenhouse on the south side of our polebarn....used river gravel for the floor over landscape paper...no more wading thru the weeds to work...or finding snakes curled up !! We also use the paper pots and they do work great but check your newspapers type of ink...one year all the paper pot plants did awful. You can use recycled computer paper,too.

-- MUTTI (windance @train.missouri.org), July 10, 1999.

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