Jay Birds Tomato Greenhouse

The Greenhouse is under way, the RV shed is gone the seedlings are 3" tall

I tore down the 20' x 40' rv shed save for the posts, saved all the lumber and went back up with 6' sidewall 8' roof greenhouse frame(lumber), layed commercial cloth on the grounsd and covered with single ply 6mil greenhouse film. Still need to hang and wire the heater, add trellis supports and build the SFG boxes. The Compost pile is ready and waiting to be mixed with peatmoss to fill the boxes. I wont be using vermiculite in the greehouse boxes this time.

Converted 2 bays of garage into leather shop 12' x 24' one store front 12' x 14' and one fda approved kitchen 10' x 12' this made room in the potting shed to actually start the seeds.

Started seeds Sun Nov 28th they are now about 3" used (3) brooder light fixtures and 120 watt grow bulbs from Lowes, waiting on the true leaves to transplant into 4" pots, total seeds planted = 250 Trust variety and 100 Blitz

Here is a photo of the Green metal RV shed from last year



I will post pics of the greenhouse tomorrow

Thanks to Carolyn, her wealth of knowledge, and posts it has helped considerably in my plans. I expect early march harvest

oh, gorgeous!

and envy! i have several inches of snow that my oldest son is happily shoveling int he back yard right now. . .

man the thought of fresh tomatoes in march. . .wow!

you need to post regular pics for us - both to cheer on your progress and two, to dream of our gardens that will follow several months after yours is in full swing. . ..

JayBird, how exciting that you are completing the Greenhouse project you mentioned some time ago. I can't wait to see the photos. Good Luck!

Latest pics of the status of the greenhouse and tomato seedlings

We have transplanted into 4" pots


The greenhouse is complete


The boxes are in process


Possible relocation of 4" pots to greenhouse christmas weekend HO HO HO HO Ho! but no Hoe Hoe Hoe Hoe

Jay Bird - So far, I think you are the closest Forum member to me (about same climate too). I'd have made this a PM, but I don't think you have your side enabled.

Reckon you could give us some info on where you got the greenhouse, or plans, materials, size, costs, et al.

Not immediately, but I'm simply going to have to build a greenhouse to start plants, extend season, et al. Don't have the room anywhere else.

Thanks!

Clay,
The lumber was all reused from the RV shed I tore down, I got all of the film , heater and cooling fan/louvers from the Greenhouse megastore, SFG boxes were rafters last week , got peatmoss from Lowes and my compost is courtesy my chickens from the hen house.

So far I have spent around $2000 on the greenhouse add another 500 if you have to buy the lumber

The greenhouse is 20' x 40' and will hold 350 tomato plants one per square foot.

Awesome! I don't have any stuff to re-use.... ouch. And I don't think I will have the room for a 20x40 either.

Absolutely wonderful. I live your excitement. I tried the trust tomatoes years ago. I did not like the flavor but they produced well. They are very expensive seeds too. Did you know that upteen years ago before they started breeding specialty tomatoes for greenhouse production they actually grew Big Boys in the greenhouses. I tried several of those specialty greenhouse varieties and they never compared to the big boy. So i tried the Big Beef which is a cross of the big boy and beefsteak. The Big Beef take a week longer than the greenhouse bred varieties but worth the extra wait.

I hope your greenhouse tomatoes turn out great. It is an obsession that I cannot seem to shake off.
I could never grow large tomatoes here during Feb. The expense would kill me and would not be worth the effort. Feb is our coldest month but it looks like December is pretty near it this year. Uggg, wish I could foretell the future..

I am a little worried about my late jan and early feb heating bills, I opted for a electric heat on thermostat and have a portable propane for assistance / emergency. East texas is way to unpredictable to try and set a date in the cooler months it snowed on us last year in april so I just trust in the lord and plant the seeds.

If the first crop will just break even, I will be happy, then I can build some more bigger ones and then some more even bigger ones ,, sooner or later I will either make a profit or go broke.

Jay...

I don't know what all your heating options are, but I'd encourage you to "do the math" and figure out which method gives you the best bang for the buck... Gotta figure out a way to get each method expressed in a apples to apples comparison (terms).... for instance dollars (pr pennies) per BTU or something similar. I suspect your electric heater is rated in BTUs... And

Propane vs. Electric.... what a tough choice to have to make. I don't know what the per gallon price of propane is, but neither method sounds very attractive...

One way to reduce your heating costs would be to increase the thermal mass in/adjacent to your green house... They use water tanks in black containers in some designs... If you could do something similar, you could use stored heat to offset some of the net energy expenditure during hours of darkness. If any surface of your greenhouse that is not involved in the direct transmission of sunlight were converted to a thermal storage mass and/or reflector/director, you could gather and store a ton of heat that could be used at night... again, all about the BTUs

I don't know/remember much about gardening, but I know thermal performance/design pretty well. If you ever want to investigate it and brain storm, gimme a holler.

Clay must be either a chemical engineer or a mech eng so much knowledge, I agree with all you said but sometimes its cheaper in the short run to use more fuel, I have even been looking at rainwater collection option but so far the pay back is much longer than the life of the equipment,

Also remember that greenhouses heat themselves during the day my test runs so far in 40 deg temps with 20 mPH winds is the heat only comes on for a few minutes evry hour now at night that will be another story,
I do think that opposes to thermal mass which may block the sun that wind breaks on the north side would be even better, so as to stop the heat loss caused by cold wind blowing over the plastic yadayada.

If the money would have been available I would have purchased the double wall poly panels but they are 65 bucks a 4x10 sheet opposed to 250 bucks for the whole roll of film

PS: Jay.... you sent me a PM but I can't respond because your are set to refuse them.

Nope... I'm not a professional engineer... I'm an amateur engineer out of necessity and I dig it besides...

There's some information in the Winter Harvest Handbook about influencing the temperature inside a greenhouse, but I've seen lots of information scattered here and there about using water to store heat to be released at night. I don't want to use electricity or fuel to heat my cold frames, so I've been contemplating ways to do so without it. One interesting fact that came from that book is that in Paris they used to bury a thick layer of horse manure beneath their raised beds to warm the soil. I've thought about giving it a try since I have a fair bit of horse manure laying around

Horse manure, thats interesting! the same phiolsophy is being adopted in chicken houses. Called the deep litter method they leave a 6" deep litter thru the winter and the composting effect of the chicken litter creates heat.

Something to ponder on!