Re: first post
the greenhouse is planned to be 30' x 24' floorplan attached to the south side of my house. that side has a two storey porch, and i am beginning the roofline at the hand rail level on the second storey. 16' headroom on that side, sloping down to 10' at the low edge. concrete block foundation, and above that stick builtwood frame with a combination of flexible pve film and corrugated polycarbonate panels.
sorry, no pics, i'm a techno - dinosaur. i still do photography with film. maybe some pics later if i get a disc made when the film is developed.
i am raising
avocados - wurtz dwarf, mexicola, winter mexican, brazos belle, joey, and an un-named cultivar from cairo ga.
mangos - maha chanok (various spellings), neelum, mallika, lancetilla, and cogshall.
bananas - raja puri (with a stalk just finishing up bloom), pisang ceylon, ladyfinger, 1000 fingers, and an un-named variety that came with some land i bought next door.
papayas - carib red and maradol
and yes, things will be crowded in there. i will have to keep busy with the pruning shears.
it's zone 8b here, we get temps down into the mid twenties most winters, upper to mid teens every few years. a dusting of snow about once a decade. we're overdue on that.
i'm planning on passive solar to carry most of the load on heating. six large (250 gal) water tanks painted black will absorb heat during the day and slowly give it up at night. infrared heat lamps, one array set to trigger at 36 degrees,a second set @ 33 as a backup.a friend who has a similar system says he gets through two out of three winters without his heaters kicking in at all.
ventilation will be two 3' x 6' openings one upstairs, one down, operated with cables from a hand crank from an old boat trailer.
i'm not sure if it will all work as planned, but most of it will. my mexicola avocado and the cairo cultivar have done all right without a greenhouse so far, each making it through three winters, and the raja puri is doing well. the other stuff? i guess i'll see as it goes along.
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