Showing posts with label Greenhouse heating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Greenhouse heating. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Midwest Gardening: April 15, 2020 Sure it's Spring!

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Quick post today,

Remember when I said, I never uncover my flower beds early? In fact I have had a war with perennials, piling leaves on them, and then having them poke their naked selves out anyway.
Midwest Gardening April 15, 2020

This photo is Saturday, our last cool but nice day. I took some quick photos just to document Easter.
Midwest Gardening: April 15,2020

A few of the garden ornaments were placed out. The leaves keep blowing away. We transplanted a few herbs, and some day lilies. 
Midwest Gardening: April 15, 2020

This is all I did in the front of the yard for Easter, I guess my heart wasn't in decorating. And, these are hardly thoughtfully designed. We have so much wind here, planting an entire bush is the only way to go. Hubby removed the bench that was here, and put up a shelf. We need to repaint the front (southern exposure) of the garage this Spring.
Midwest Gardening:April 15,2020

Our front porch tin pail has some faux forsythia in it for color, and our sparkly bunny sits in my wreath from last year...the pillows have faded to a nice spring shade. I have covers ready for later. This porch is so sunny and always windy.

 THEN, after freezing temperatures for three nights we woke up to SNOW! 1-3inches across Chicagoland, the ground was white everywhere, this photo was taken at 11:30 am, after 4 hours of sunshine.

 Fifty-four cars piled up on the Kennedy this morning at 5:45 this morning due to heavy snow falling and unseen black ice. Many cars were totaled, it look like a bumper cars gone wrong...luckily no one was seriously injured.
Midwest Gardening: April 15, 2020
THIS IS WHY...YOU DON'T REMOVE FLOWER BED DEBRIS IN THE UPPER MIDWEST!

Midwest Gardening: April 15, 2020

Honestly...you can't rule out having freezing temps, it is 32 at noon with a 25 degree windchill. UGH! The greenhouse was 44 degrees at 6 am. Thats with full 1500 watts going at high. At 12:30 pm today it is hovering at 70, with the heater going. I think wind is a big factor, we realize we still have leaks.
Midwest Gardening: April 15, 2020

 Back to our vigorous perennials, I know I mounded these up on Monday---our Hollyhocks, some daylilies, and something else. to the right. Hopefully the leaves helped a little. But they grew more and pushed them off. I wonder how many bees and helpful insects are burrowed under all that?
Midwest Gardening: April 15, 2020


 Day Lilies are pretty tough, the Daffodils to the right haven't bloomed yet.

Midwest Gardening: April 15, 2020

 Just for FUN, we have one bird feeder on the front porch, and the birds throw seed everywhere, but we enjoy watching them. Squirrels aren't shy here, at all... I rapped on the window to get him to turn around.
Midwest Gardening: April 15, 2020

He was too busy visiting my sisal squirrel, which apparently likes to pop out of the tub of faux flowers. Or maybe he is feasting on the seeds, too. 

LOL, Happy Spring?! 

Thank you for any and all comments.
Finally I am able to reply to comments by using Chrome. So all you Mac users who have upgraded to Catalina---this might help the glitches on Safari Blogger!

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. I am not reimbursed or given product for any of my opinions, or for use of a product in this blog. 

Thank you for your cooperation, 
Sandi 









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Friday, April 10, 2020

Midwest Gardening April: Greenhouse Heating

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First week of April 2020 Midwest Gardening.

While so many of you are in zones far warmer than Chicagoland (5b) we still battle crazy temperature changes. 
We had a few days of really nice weather last week. This shows the wall temp(in the sun) roughly at noon. No need for a heater then.


At this point, we open all the windows and turn on the ceiling fan. These planters are under a shelf---and it's 91.9 degrees F.

We moved almost all the plants from the kitchen out to the greenhouse early last week.

I also started large planters of lettuce are on the floor on the west side. We have used paver base as a floor, it's fine for walking on and will absorb excess water. We are waiting to see how the drainage, heat, and comfort works with this. We may put some patio blocks over this--
for holding heat in the Fall. 

I am going to try and keep the greenhouse 
going for fresh greens and vegetables until December...we will see. 


We should have purchased a heater in winter, because, now, Hubby didn't have much of a choice. 
We had wanted one with a temperature gauged on/off switch, but none seemed available. 
We ended up with  a 2 ceramic rod 1500W heater, choice of 1-2 rods on, 
and a wide temperature range dial.

How much electricity you use is dependent on the settings. We usually turn it totally off by10am on any kind of sunny day, and quite low on cloudy days. Even during clouds you have radiant heat penetrating through.

Excuse all the cords (12guage for the heater) everywhere. Not going for aesthetics, yet in the greenhouse.


The other purchase was a remote temperature system, which came with three sensors (battery) which transmit to a display screen in the house. We can see all three temps-most of the time, as they cycle at different times. 

In the afternoon the sun can still be quite hot---however, once the trees leaf out it should be easier to control.

These gauges  are very sensitive to sun...so we don't get hysterical unless all three temps register insane numbers.
The manual ceiling fan (3 settings) circulates the heat and also makes our plants stronger.

This is the indoor display...96, 72, 98...we know that two sensors are in the sun at this time. The bottom 74 is our home indoor temp(lots of windows in this house) and 48 is the humidity. 

Last night was 27...degrees, and we maintained in the 40's with the 2 rods going at about 75%.

Now, I will go out and turn them way down, though the outdoor temp is still in the 30's as the sun is kicking in. (9:30am)

We found, prices range for heaters, $50-$200, ours was $79. 
Prices for sensor systems are basically under $100 + the price of batteries. Lots are available with many options.

I'll never advertise any brands or systems, just giving you an idea of how much this little project ends up costing. These are multi-season investments. Our last greenhouse lasted us over 10 years, this one should be good until we are gone. We did burn up 2 heaters in the last 10 years---because of moisture issues, but the last greenhouse was a tent of sorts, this one is pretty much waterproof.
AND, that's why cords are strung up all over. 

HOW ARE YOUR SPRING PLANTINGS, GOING?
HUGS AND STAY SAFE!

Thank you for any and all comments.
Finally I am able to reply to comments by using Chrome. So all you Mac users who have upgraded to Catalina---this might help the glitches on Safari  and Blogger!











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