Posted on 11/24/2017 6:22:19 PM PST by greeneyes
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The green house is almost finished. Hubby worked on putting in the rubber weatherstripping on the panes. All are done except one side. He's going to put up some insulation along the areas that are against the house.
A friend of his suggested solar panel and battery bank as a means to heat it at night, so he's doing some research on that.
Yesterday the heat built up above 90 degrees inside the green house, and I opened the door to let the heat indoors. We put an electric heater in there after the sun went down, and monitored the falling temp.
It got down to 45 degrees, so I wheeled the plants back indoors and turned off the heater at bedtime. Since the weather is supposed to be warmer tonight, we may leave the plants out there tonight.
Right now the temp out there is still 70 degrees. When fully insulated and with water containers, it should stay warmer even without the electric heater.
Garlic hasn't sprouted yet. Did not get the wheat planted yet. Lemons are yellow- almost ripe. Hope everyone had a great holiday. Prayers up for all.
Have a good weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the List.
I kind of go into hibernation in the Winter.
When Harley ain’t happy, Mama ain’t happy.
You want to heat it at night, look into a rocket stove that runs its chimney horizontally through thermal mass. its an old hippy design, but it works wonderfully and is made of scrap tin cans and mud. runs on yard waste and sticks.
One light year cheaper than solar and battery bank.
Now if you must go solar, go hot water solar and water tank storage.
Decades cheaper and 900% more efficient.
I too kinda hibernate. I detest the cold, and hate wearing bulky coats. Solution is to stay indoors and drink hot liquids, and bask in the warm sunlight of the afternoon -sitting in a chair in front of the patio door - now I’ll be able to really warm up in the green house.
Brought in all my citrus and tender plants this past weekend & stationed them in my dining room window for the winter. Bought some giant black rubberlike trays to put them in so no messes.
Spent Monday singing ‘the ants go marching...’
One of them apparently had an ant nest. Once the ants got warm in the house they decided to go look for somewhere more interesting to nest!
AUGH!
Also spent Monday ‘rapturing’ the ants with my dyson handheld.
Fortunately they were just the little ordinary ants and not fire ants!
Looks like you and i are Sol-Sistahs! ;-0
I already tried to talk about rocket stove mass heater - I just got that glassy eyed thousand yard stare and snarky remarks.
Nor was there an interest in solar till a friend of his mentioned it. There was also a discussion with someone about heating water, but I don’t recall all the details.
Simply happy that he’s looking into it. Once he starts researching, he does pretty good at coming up with efficient solutions.
Good news - not fire ants! I need to give my lemon tree a bath and hose off all the leaves-it’s got something on it - this happens every summer. Once it gets a bath-should be ok till spring.
I like to have a backup to my backups, and solar is intriguing in many ways. Been looking at some homade window “heaters” made of aluminum cans and used to give some heat to bedrooms.
My lemon tree is blooming again.
Smells WONDERFUL in my dining room now.
The days around here are so gloomy that the solar-powered mailbox light didn’t come on like it’s supposed to.
It is the best scent! Should get some more blossoms sometime this winter, after I harvest the lemons.
We have a few days like that too. We have some of those solar powered walkway lights. They get a bit weak at times.
The “greenies” never took gloomy days into consideration.
Well, it’s always best to have several ways of doing stuff, since the sun doesn’t always shine, and the rain isn’t constant either.
Whew, I’m nodding off - better go lay down and take a nap. Talk to you later.
Yeah...I was so tired this evening that I stayed home, even though my two nephews’ AWESOME band is playing in my own town...I just was too cold and achy to go out tonight.
It’s OK...they have a huge following, but I like their music and enjoy supporting them.
hippies used to run a rocket stove through a long foot locker sized bench made of cob, (clay dirt and straw mix) You had a warm bed to sleep on all night. It can store and amazing amount of heat. A rocket stove will heat that bench up with a couple of handfuls of sticks from your yard. Slow time release heat.
a simple black water barrel is cheap and easy. But...
too bad on the thousand yard stare. I am moving back to Alaska, want to try rocket stove heated beds.
Hubby got a pack of cheap paintbrushes, we’re going to try to pollinate these ourself.
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