greenhouse pond – This is Jugtown

What the DUCK!!

Posted on June 13, 2019 by rinnathebean

This is not a pretty picture. I decided to drain the greenhouse pond due to the ducks breaking in and, in addition to eating half my seedlings, drowning a bunch of them that I had floating in the pond to keep hydrated. The pump that circulates the water was sputtering and I didn’t want it to perish so I drained the pond (transfer pumps are amazing FYI).

And this is what I found! Apparently those assholes laid eggs in the pond. And these eggs aren’t from their most recent break-in because I don’t think they were in there long enough; these are from the winter when I felt bad because the temperatures dropped into the negative teens so I let them hang out inside the greenhouse. So these eggs have been rotting on the bottom of the pond for four months or so. I’m pretty sure at this point they might be considered delicacies in some countries!

And apparently autocorrect has been right this whole time – ducks are fucks!

Building, Greenhouse, Successes

Pond – Redux

Posted on October 26, 2017 by rinnathebean

It’s a pond, again! E and I moved the pond the other day and it seems to be doing pretty well!! We decided on a more rectangular design and a much more shallow pond mainly because the ground on that side of the greenhouse was impossible to dig into and the cinder blocks are super heavy (plus I managed to injure my wrist slightly so lifting and moving cinder blocks is probably a bad idea). But I also think the shallower water will heat up faster because there is more surface area and I like that it can be filled up more to the top than I thought was safe with the double layer of cinder blocks (if I had mortared them together I think it would have been fine, but as they were I wasn’t too sure of their stability so didn’t fill the old pond up very much). So really, I think we will just say that it was on purpose and not because we failed at digging.

It’s looking nice and I have high hopes for it. It is definitely more in the sun, but still close enough to the electrical outlet for the pump which I still need to set up. I already think the water seems warmer than the old pond, but that may just be wishful thinking. Aesthetically I do like this one more and once there are more plants I think it will be ever better since they will hid the liner and it will look even more tropical!

I’m trying to convince E that we should put those fish that eat your callouses off your feel in it, but she thinks it’s a bad idea. I think a greenhouse foot spa sounds brilliant!

Greenhouse, Plans

It’s Raining… in the greenhouse

Posted on October 18, 2017October 18, 2017 by rinnathebean

It looks so tropical in there, right?! It sure feels tropical because it is humid as all hell in the greenhouse. Like so humid it is literally raining in there. The sun was out in full force today and someone (no idea at all who that could be) apparently didn’t twist the wires to the fan together enough and the fan quit working!

(You can see the untwisted white wires up at the top, along with the rogue wire nut at the bottom. Don’t get me started on the black wire connected to the white wire in there, seriously I have no idea, but it works)

So during the day at some point it got up to almost 105 degrees, leading to the pond relocating onto the greenhouse film making it steamy and rainy inside. So, I did some research about this humidity issue, and I’m almost convinced it is an issue, but also not convinced that it needs an immediate or high-tech resolution. Apparently most plants don’t like a lot of humidity – it messes with their respiration and can lead to the spread of diseases, especially fungus and mildew issues. I also am pretty sure it’s not great for the materials in the greenhouse, mainly the electrical work in there, but that is less of a concern.

The goal of this particular greenhouse is to be somewhat tropical, so the humidity might not be that big of an issue. I assume that some plants don’t mind the humidity and would enjoy the steaminess. The drawback of this is that I want to grow tomatoes and other veggies in there and I know that tomatoes and squash are especially susceptible to fungus/blight and powdery mildew. I could try to make some sort of division between the pond area and the veggie areas, but that seems counter-productive to the whole heat-sink idea of the pond, and I have four other greenhouses, so if I was going to do that, I should just use a different one.

A couple of commercial/industrial solutions exist: non-condensing greenhouse glazing, condensation reducing sprays, circulation fans, and dry-air heat. I’m not particularly interested in trying out most of these. I know I need more circulation, but I’m trying to balance that with keeping the heat in, so I need to try to figure that out. I also could keep the water in a container that didn’t allow evaporation, but I really like the idea of a greenhouse pond, so I’m really set on making this work. So…

Solutions I am willing to try that might work:

The greenhouse glazing is double thick and there is a blower which can inflate between the two layers and allow for better insulation leading to less of a temperature differential between the inside and outside air which is a large cause of condensation.
I could try to come up with something that could force the condensation to happen in a certain place – a metal tube or some sort of upside-down pointy thing? This would hopefully lead to less dripping in random areas and if possible, reduce the humidity.
Venting – yes I know I need more of this, but my highest hope is that maybe this isn’t an issue at all. Maybe if the fan had been working the humidity would never have risen too far to start with and we would all be millionaires… yeah…

Greenhouse, Lessons Learned, Plans

Greenhousing

Posted on October 17, 2017April 12, 2019 by rinnathebean

I know, I know, that is a thing of beauty! But seriously, that is the beginning of my pond in the greenhouse. Water has one of the highest capacities to hold heat of pretty any much material on Earth so it is a great way to keep a greenhouse warm at night when the sun isn’t shining and you haven’t figured out how the furnaces work and don’t really want to. So I made a pond – I dug a bit, I used approximately fifteen tons of cinder blocks (or at least that is how my back feels), I got a pond liner, and I filled it with some water.

And now I have to undo all of that.

Silly me figured that the location I was building it was a good one since it was close to the electrical outlets my dad put in (thanks Bernavel!), and I will need a pump in the pond to keep the water moving and fulfill my dreams of some crazy pond-based irrigation system.

(And yeah I know – that is a super sweet phone charger/speaker set up there. Also the outlets point down to avoid any water situations, but don’t worry – they are GFCI. Safety First!)

But when the outlets were installed it was about mid-summer and that general area was plenty sunny. Now that it’s mid-fall that area is not so sunny. There are some pretty large pine trees close enough to the greenhouse on the southern side that it blocks some of the midday sun in part of the greenhouse. This is not an ideally situated greenhouse – if I were starting from scratch I would have oriented the greenhouse perpendicular to where it is now and set it further back from the trees, thus allowing the most sun absorption during the day. But you get what you get.

And what I got is a pond that is currently in the shade the better part of the day at the time of year when I need it most to retain heat.

Lessons learned:

Observe, then build. It would have been nice if I hadn’t been so dead set on putting the pond right near the outlet and actually realized that the sun was going to shift.
The sun moves! East/West and North/South. (I mean, yes, I obviously knew that, but when you are dependent on the sun for more than a pretty sunset over the city skyline it becomes a little more apparent)
Cinder blocks are heavy! But I used them because I have a ton of them and they are actually pretty useful. Next iteration of the pond I will probably dig down further into the ground and only use one layer of blocks around the edges.

And so the pond will be moved. Luckily I didn’t fill it all the way since I was going more for “proof of concept” and conceptually it is a pond in its ability to hold water – cold water.

(Note: it did drop below freezing last night and the low in the greenhouse was only 38 degrees. I’m not sure if the pond had anything to do with that, but at least my plants are still alive)