"Darling, the weather is so beautiful -- no sign of frost until Fall. Shall we drive with the top down starting today?" And so began the next phase of our unheated greenhouse sojourn: sliding off the plastic covering from most of the greenhouse, opening it up to the elements. The photo at right shows what it looks like now (click on either of the two photos in this post to see a larger image).So, why take it off at all, much less only part-way? Well, despite providing ventilation, on a sunny day it would get up over 110 degrees F inside at the peek -- and that was just in late April! We added a large, opaque tarp for shade then and kept it there until the plastic came off to control the temperature, keeping it under 90 at the maximum. If we wanted the plants to get full sunshine, the plastic would have to come off.
We also were enjoying our out-of-the-weather seating/eating area in one end of the greenhouse and wanted to keep it covered. Ditto my husband's workshop that he set up adjacent to the eating area which he uses to create the infrastructure we're developing to run this mini-farm experiment of ours. Both areas are somewhat visible in the bottom right photo (excuse the workshop mess -- it's been a busy time...)So, how has it gone? On some levels, absolutely splendidly -- better than we could have hoped for. On other levels... with difficulty; mostly difficulties that could have been anticipated. More on the challenges and triumphs next.
Photos: ©2009 Don Stevenson
