Tried the Poor Man's Greenhouse, and like it!

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Some time ago I posted a link to the Poor man's Greenhouse. Well, this weekend I got around to trying it, and hey, it only took me and Andy an hour and was put together with materials that I had on hand. Cool!

Uhhh....now what? I have no idea what to do with a greenhouse! I guess I should plant things in it, but do I need to put a heater inside at night until things get warmer? Is it too early to plant things in it yet? I'm pretty new to the whole gardening thing. Last year I had high hopes but by the end of the season I was worried we could lose small children in the weeds there... It's still getting down to the 20's at night here, 40's and 50's during the day.

Well, at least my kids will enjoy playing in their new "tent" until I can figure out what to do with it. Does anyone have suggestions for growing oriental vegetables? An aquaintance offered to buy any that I could grow, but I'm not sure what will work in American soil, especially seeing as how I don't speak their language. :-)

-- Chuck (woah@mission4me.com), February 18, 2002

Answers

Silly Chuck, vegetables don't talk....they hum! Hummmmmmmmmmmmm! For oriental cabbage you grow it pretty much like you do regular cabbage, except that some of it is more sensitive to the cold. Better get busy planting if you want to grow them from seeds this year. They take a while to germinate and you will want to get them in the ground to mature before the heat of the Summer. That depends of course on the variety and type of veggie.

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), February 18, 2002.

Pak choi does wonderfully well in Kansas. It was slow to bolt and resisted some good frosts. It's a type of cabbage, really.

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), February 18, 2002.

Good Job... I should try this...as I have little space to grow my seedlings indoors...LOL... Kristean

-- Kristean Thompson (pigalena_babe@yahoo.com), February 18, 2002.

chuck, ring up your County Extension Service, They'll have some good info for you on using that cool looking greenhouse you built and what veggies will do well in your area. What fun, thanks for giving us a look. LQ

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), February 18, 2002.

Forgot to say....a 100 watt bulb or two will keep your new greenhouse warm at night. Make sure that you don't have any spots where the air will get in the bottom and freeze your plants at night. You might want to put hay around the edges to keep the plastic down and the plants warmer. Sounds like you have a great new greenhouse.

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), February 18, 2002.


Chuck

Put a thermometer in to monitor the pre- sun temps,(and full sun also).

Our cold frame thermo read 32 at sun up. 100 plus at 12 noon. (2/18/2002- 50 miles towards the atlantic from you) I suspect you will see colder temps. Radishes like the cold. So does chard. Maybe lettuce. I saw (actually dined on) turnips picked from open field, last week. I wouldn't be surprised to see peas growing in there (put inner plastic on babies at night).

See the library for a trial copy of Eliot Coleman's "4 Season Harvest".

-- Rick in Southwest WV (Rick_122@hotmail.com), February 18, 2002.


Chuck you don't have snow like some of us!!!!!!! Plant some freakin tomato seeds and watch them die would ya! OK that was mean and I promised my analyst I'd be sweet today, Boc choi is a coldie if I remember right. You have seed catalogs? Veggies took a back seat to everything once I realized I was competing with 2 billion profesionals.

-- Ross (amulet@istar.ca), February 18, 2002.

Boy am I glad I'm not the only one that doesn't have a clue about a greenhouse/coldframe. I sure wish I'd paid more attention to what my pap was doing when he was around. I figure I'm giving him one heck of a good laugh every year around planting season though!

-- Terri in WV (mrs_swift_26547@yahoo.com), February 19, 2002.

It is a beautiful thing , your little green house! If you are serious about the oriental veggies, the bok choi, chinese cabbage, daikon radish, cilantro ( also known as chinese parsley) and snow peas would be a good start. Here in W WA, the radishes and bok choi over winter even with snow and temps down in the low 20s at night. To get them started tho, you may want to start seedlings indoors and then plant them out when they are well established. A gardening book for your area or the seed packet should have info on when to plant out. After figuring out if it freezes or not in the green house (see above advice) determine to plant out your seedings at the approprite time based on seed packet recomendations and monitored greenhouse temps. Hope this makes sense! I think ground temp needs to be about 60 deg for the seeds to germinate, and about 65 deg to grow. Good luck! Darlene

-- Darlene in W WA (tomdarsavy@cs.com), February 19, 2002.

Chuck, it sounds like you are talking about what to plant in the GROUND inside your greenhouse. Actually, I thought this little structure (I'll be building my own very soon, with old windows instead of plastic) was meant to house seedlings in flats...which would then be moved to the garden and planted in the ground. Altho, I guess if yours is portable, you could very well plant stuff in the ground and then just move the whole deal off the site when the time was right. I'll be using mine to harden off seedlings, rather than planting inside it.

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), February 19, 2002.


Hi Chuck,

Most of the so called "Chinese vegetables" seem to be in the cabbage and mustard family so if you can grow a head of cabbage you can grow it regardless of national origin. The Chinese stuff is all late fall, winter, or early spring material here in North Florida as the first real hot weather that comes in makes them bolt or gives them a nasty bitter flavor so your "poorman's greenhouse" should work just fine. I'll be building one myself next winter. If it's too far away for runnin electrical power to then a old-fashioned kerosene lanter will work just fine if you don't get it too near to the plastic.

........Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlanticl.net), February 19, 2002.


I have used gallon plastic jugs filled with water, set around plants, as a poor man's imitation of the wall-o-water trick. It works well. Wonder if it could be used in that greenhouse to hold the heat overnight.

Another suggestion: in the eons-ago past, before electricity, the heat of composting manure was used to heat hotbeds in winter. I wonder if it would work to dig a 3'deep pit (before the ground freezes, of course), and fill it with fresh strawy manure, topped off with a few inches of topsoil, before putting up the poor man's greenhouse above it. Betcha you could grow all your tomato slips right there in the ground in February. No fertiliser needed. Might need to keep an eye on the temperature to vent the plastic if necessary. A few short vertical slits in the plastic close to the peak might make it more self-regulating.

Course, diggin that thar hole requires more sweat and toil than I feel like spending on the garden in the fall. But then, I DO have that strappin teenager with a bored look on his face... He looks like he needs a good productive workout.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), February 19, 2002.


chuck , mustard, lettuce(good old black seeded simpson) pak choi,joi choi(a hybrid pak choy) and anything else,

keep the greenhouse warm , either put straw or shovel dirt around the edges , so no drafts get in , i usually build mine,

then wait a week of good sunny weather , before planting(warms up the ground) and then , you could also use gallon jugs of 2 liter bottles full of water to help hold heat, and act as "heater" at night for your plants, one or two large 100 watt bulbs will also work , peas might grow in there for you too, sugar pods peas like the cold

good luck , looks great , and reminds me i got to get mine built too :)

-- Beth Van Stiphout (willosnake@hotmail.com), February 20, 2002.


I love this whole thread and your poor man's greenhouse is so much like my poor man's shed that I had to laugh... picture your A-frame with bright blue tarps :>) I was just planning on buying some PVC and some fittings to build a greenhouse... and was also pondering the fact that here in Upstate NY(near the Vermont border) we will be dealing with cold nights for a while yet. So here is my question to all you perusers of this site... There is this 24X30 blacktop on my property that started life as a basketball court... if I put my greenhouse on it... will it serve to keep it heated at night... and conversely the question I have is... will the blacktop serve to fry my seedlings during the day... and would there be any fumes from the blacktop that would adversely affect my plants???? If the blacktop will cause too much heat I could, I suppose paint it a less heat absorbing color... any feedback would be greatly appreciated... what a great bunch of people you all are!

-- Susan Louise (aggiesue@localnet.com), April 04, 2002.

One more question.... how do you include a photo in this reply area?

-- Susan Louise (aggiesue@localnet.com), April 04, 2002.


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