Fall Gardening: The Final Harvest, Cooking and Heating Costs 4 of 4 - TRG 2014
Tips, Tricks
Here is the end of the 4 part series on using a greenhouse over my raised bed to grow tomatoes and other plants into December, here in Maryland Zone 7. I show my harvest, what I made today and present some final thoughts on heating cost. Check out my vegetable gardening blog: The Rusted Garden. It is filled with garden information, videos, pictures, seed catalogs and seeds & things I sell. www.therustedgarden.blogspot.com Join My Google+ Gardening Community called Our Tomato & Vegetable Gardens - we are approaching 5000 world-wide gardeners: https://plus.google.com/communities/114956817444053979636 or Link from My YouTube Page.
Comments
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what a harvest! i live around the equator. growing tomatoes and peppers is effortless here, but growing lettuce is another story.
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I wanna come eat at your house :)
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Bravo!
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+Gary Pilarchik
Perhaps a rocket mass heater is in the near future. ;) -
I have several raised beds, one 5 x 10 will be a greenhouse. But I admire your year long productivity lol. Gary I actually ate my last ripe tomato on 11-6 lol. Not bad. Ever heard of Ohio Heirloom Seeds? Very good prices, one of 3 vendors I have seeds ordered from. And I ordered micronozed Azomite, bone meal & 15# earthworm castings from RootNaturally in Ohio like that growing your greens guy said. Actually growingyourgreens got me a 10% discount. 1tblsp of micronized Azomite in a gallon of water gives amazing results. Rootnaturally shipped free, prices were excellent as was the quality of all 3 products I ordered. And no, my brother n law dont own it lol. Again, they offer free shipping, so the prices are excellent.
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Maybe a cheap solar panel ~200 and a car battery would help your green house remain warm. It will pay for itself in no time. But I don't know enough about electrical grids and wiring so....Also I would recommend 40-45degrees instead of 35 because the outer edges of the green house maybe close to 32, might be risking it.
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Love that.........
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Hi Gary,
Good video as always. Re your squash, I grow 7 varieties here in zone 4/5 Milwaukee. We eat them thru the winter, usually until April, by keeping them in a cooler room closet and dry. The key is to have at least 1-2 " of stem that dries up. We had only 2 squash go bad on us last year. -
Gary, a great series and nice harvest to end the year. Looking forward to 2015, happy holidays.
Rasheed -
Great
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Great video. I hope it works out for you. :-)
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thanks for sharing
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As for heat... I wonder how a black container of water would help. Especially with an aquarium heater in it. That container you have the heater sitting on is what brings that thought to mind.
I'm sure you've seen green houses where the north wall is some kind of water feature mostly for insulation and heat retention. Might take some of the load off of the electric heater.
Thanks Gary!! -
Thanks Gary Your harvest is making me jealous, it is a good job your don't suffer from heartburn or you couldn't eat all those peppers or tomatoes. Heating is always a question as to what method you use- as electricity (cost per kwHr) will be the highest. Have you thought about getting a propane/butane gas heaters because of there higher calorific value would making the cost per kwHr more economical (although the heaters are costly and you need training on how to use those gas bottles). They have an added benefit of producing carbon monoxide that feeds the plants. Like a true engineer that I am, I would perform a Cost benefit analysis of which method is the best in the long run, including Kerosene (paraffin) but I worry that the plastic sheeting may melt.
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I hear what your saying about the cost benefit of using a heater etc., but we all have to spend our money on something. So if you value your garden and all the fresh and healthy things that you get out of it, then to me, that is worth it. The health benefits and the joy you get from gardening might offset the money used in heating your greenhouse. Just a thought.
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Maybe some type of electrical water heater, basically scalled up version what u have in your small hoop house. But then you might have some problems with humidity...
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Thanks for the upload gary
Maybe one day, when you decide to keep the greenhouse, there might be alternative ways to keep it from freezing, like dig it in one or better 2 feet, an extra layer of plastic, and have the exhaust from the heating of your house go in between these 2 layers of plastic ? Also some sort of woodstove might come in handy at a certain moment, where you can burn stuff from the garden. But then basically you are spending more and more time on that, and you prolly need to earn a living too.
I really like that you look at the cost, whether you really need to or not. I'm like that too, always weighing the cost of electricity against the produce.
Cheers :o) -
Hi Gary FYI I've seen videos where active compost piles were built inside a greenhouse, and used to heat that greenhouse. / craig
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Nice experiment! Probably more worth it to just have a longer cold crop season in there. Looks really good in there but you could totally fill it with kale, chard and things like that.
You could probably move the whole tomato/pepper operation indoors if you have the space and grow lots with 750 watts of lights. Just my 2 cents :) -
Not sure exactly how much heat it would put off but what about the heat lamps used for chickens one or two would be inexpensive and they do provide a pretty good amount of heat
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