Cattle Panel Hoophouse

Will do Jeanette. This is something I've wanted all my life and now it's finally coming true. I want it done as well as I can with as many bells and whistles as I can afford!

MollyD who is hoping to get more caulking done today and maybe even the door put up since the sun is shinning. I'm working alone today so not sure how much can get done.

Molly D, you had all weekend to do that stuff. Where are the pictures??? lLOL, Jeanette

It rained all weekend Jeanette :-( sorry. I'll try for today .

MollyD

Just teasing you Molly. So many things get in the way don't they? Especially the weather. Jeanette

Haven't even gone out there today Jeanette. Snow showers all day so far and I've been trying to catch up on some much neglected housework. I envy men. When they work on a project they come inside and sit down. We come inside and get onto the next job (laundry, cooking,cleaning, etc). Makes for very long days!

MollyD

Sure hear you there Molly. They have been threatening us with snow showers but so far we haven't had any. Just a short thunder and lightening tonight. Sure hope you get your gh up before winter. I am just dying to see it.

I still have geraniums, fuchsias, and brugs yet to bring in. I bought a lot of plants that I doubt that I am going to get planted before winter. Do you think they would be ok to go dormant in my plant room in the high 40s? They are in their gallon to 3 gallon containers.

Hi Jeanette,

Sounds like your weather is similar to ours right now. Snow showers in the forecast all weekend followed by snow (boo hiss) Monday and Tuesday.
Now that the frame is up I can keep working on the GH so I know I'll be using it this winter. My personal goal is November 1st (grin) we'll see!
I don't know anything about brugs or fuschias. I've never grown either. Geraniums I've grown but I've never let mine go fully dormant. I just keep them in my windows with a bit less water than later. They drop a lot of leaves and of course no flowers but they always rally around late March. Of course this house tends to be rather cool (less so nowdays).
I'm adding a photo of the inside of the GH to this post. You can see how much work still has to be done before the daylilys can move in. I have a few patio tomatos in there (have to pick two to keep and toss the others) and yesterday I moved in a couple of pots off the deck that stil had flowers going. A little instant color. The blue-green stuff on the walls is foamboard insulation that I'm adding. The last layer will be the aluminum backed type.
Not a beauty but for now I just want it to work well. Next summer I'll take it all down and redo it to make it nicer.

MollyD

Lookin' good Molly! So, when does the pool cover go up? Or is that the pool cover? You said it was going on the inside? What is going on the outside? And, why would you need an outside? I know absolutely nothing about them. Are you going to have any artificial lighting? Like florescents? Can't remember what you said about heating?

My problem is just the opposite. I am trying to get mine cooler. It is off the heated basement and we put insulation over the sliding glass doors and window so now I can't get it lower than the mid to high 50s. Not good for dormancy.

Jeanette

Thanks Jeanette. What you see is the plastic film which is the outside of the GH. The solar pool cover will go on the inside but I can't put it up till I finish all the insulation and wiring since they have to be in place first. We need the double layer to keep the heat in as much as possible. With two layers you get a dead air space which traps the heat inside the GH (to a degree, nothing is perfect). Once the pool cover is installed then the florescent lights will go in. They'll run from 3 pm to around 10 pm. We get very little sunlight in the winter so these are necessary. I'm in zone 4b so I'm colder here than you are.
For this year the GH will be run on electric heat. Fingers crossed that we get an outdoor furnace by next winter because then the GH will be heated from that along with our house and hot water heater. Much cheaper for us to run that.

Molly

Oh Molly, you said the magic word. I have been thinking about getting an outdoor furnace. Have you done any research on them? What brand are you looking at? Sorry, I didn't mean to get off track here. Let me know about the furnace. If I had one of those I would consider a greenhouse too.

So, how are you going to hold the pool cover up?

Girl, if you ever want to get away from your kids or husband, you can hibernate there over the winter. LOL

Hi Jeanette,

We're looking at two different furnaces. I can only remember the name of one of them, it's called The Classic. For the life of me I can't remember the name of the other brand. Both are pretty much in the same price range (around $10,000. for our house), the main differences is that the one I can't remember adds the price of the pipes to this while the Classic includes them. Also the Classic doesn't require a fan that seems to run all the time and the other brand does.
I had thought to use cable ties to hold the cover in place but now I'm thinking that I'll get a smoother installation with wire holding it in place. Will probably have to tape it somewhere with that GH tape too.
(LOL) Paul asked me where I would be putting my bed! Sun was shining today for a couple of hours. When I got home it was 60 in the GH and felt nice! My "kids" are two grown men so it's hard to hide from them (lol). I think they could find me easily!

MollyD

Molly, did the mfg of the furnaces give you any idea how much wood/pellets, or whatever it would take?

How big is your house for a $10,000 furnace? Did they come out and look at it? What else did you plan on heating? Why does the fan run all the time?

Whoops, off track here. How would you hook the cover with cable ties? And what kind of wire were you thinking of? Like Chicken wire? That might work. I don't know what GH tape is.

Yeah, I think Paul sees the handwriting on the wall. The more cozy it gets the less he is going to see of you. LOL

Hi Jeanette,

The brand I couldn't remember (brain like a sieve these days!) is Aquatherm. They have a web page.
We'd be using wood, about 20 face cords (a face cord is a stack 4ft High x 2 ft deep x 8 ft long in case you're not familiar with the term) for the year (we cut our own so no added expense for us there). Our house is about 2500 sq ft. The price included installation cost and all the little parts you have to get (in addition to the furnace). Yes they came out to calculate the cost, how far the furnace has to be from the house (the further away the higher the cost since you pay for the pipes by the foot). Aquatherm uses the fan to push the heat. I forget the exact reason why they use this system but it does add a little to the cost of operating it.
We'd be heating the house, our hot water (saves about $75./month on electricity) and the GH.

If I use the cable ties I would simply punch little holes in the cover and fasten it to the cattle panels behind it. Afterwards I'd cover the holes with GH (greenhouse) tape which is really thick stuff. The wire I was referring to is a thick wire like a rope. You can find it at Walmart. Once you cut it to length you put this fastener in , wrap the wire around what you're attaching it to and put the end back into the fastener. Then you crimp it tight. You repeat this at the other end. I'm inclined to prefer this method though it will cost a little more to do than the cable ties.

Paul should only worry if I move the computer and the TV in there (LOL)

MollyD

Hi Molly,

I will do some research with them. Now, I don't know if I am doing this right, but your "face" cord seems to me to be 1/4 of a cord? Is that right? Isn't a cord 8 high, 8 long, and 4 deep? Or am I going too high? If I am right, that would only be 5 cords you are using. That's not bad. Do you cut on your own property, or on government owned?

That is really interesting.

By cable ties do you mean those white nylon ties? I think I know what you are talking about when you say wire like rope and crimping it. Like a piece of lead. Is that right? That is really interesting. So, what are you going to heat your gh with before you do the furnace thing? I think you said way back there somewhere. And what temp would you have it on?

I am having a real problem with the temp in my "plant room". It stays pretty constant at around 50 degrees which is too warm. I might end up with bugs. If I do I will throw the whole works out rather than fight them all winter. I might be able to find a bomb I could use for aphids and the like. Guess I will check Charleys or a couple of others. That would be cool if I could take care of them that way. I fought them all winter last year but I had them in the basement where the furnace is and it is pretty much the same temp a the rest of the house. I never thought to look for a bug bomb.

Full cord is 4x4x8 foot.

Thanks Darius, that is a full cord. Jeanette a face cord is more like a half a cord, so that would be about 10 cords of wood. We cut on both our property and that of friends who need their woods cleared out. Never on government land.
yes those are cable ties.
The wire is more like a metal cable than lead. It literally looks like a metal rope.
At the moment I'm using an electric heater but I'm looking into a propane heater as backup in case of a power failure. I'm keeping the GH at a minimum of 35F but as soon as the sun comes out it climbs rapidly. We had about an hour of sun today and it went to 76 in there fast. Dropped just as fast once the clouds came back in.
I use liquid Sevin to kill aphids. Mix it up with water (also comes ready mixed), put in a spray bottle and goodbye aphids. Aside from the bug bombs made for houses (and those warn you not to use where there are open flames or electrical things) I'm not familiar with any.
50 does seem too warm to keep plants dormant. Maybe your garage or an unheated shed?

MollyD

Ok, half that. I wasn't sure. 10 cords. What do you use now? We have both electric and wood. On cold days we use both. Heat the house up with the wood and then let the electric take over. We did a lot of logging this year and they cleaned up after themselves. (I shouldn't say we did it, we had it done) But, there is still a lot of firewood. I had them limb and deck it.

When I say cutting firewood on govrnment land, out here the Forest Service sells permits to cut wood on their land, DOWN stuff for $5 per cord. And almost all property in this county that is not privately owned is Forest Service owned. And, there are only 11,000 people in the whole county. The county is a pretty good size actually. You are probably thinking that if it isn't private then what else would it be. LOL, the next county over is mostly State owned for the schools. Any money made from that land goes to support the schools.

No, I don't have any place, and I am lucky for this. I guess I am going to have to figure out some way to make it cooler. I have a root cellar that stays in the mid 40s which would be good but it isn't near big enough. As far as the spray goes, I know they have the bug bombs. I will just have to find them. I don't like the thought of being in an enclosed space like that and spraying stuff.

I REALLY want my woodstove hooked up here, but my chimney needs relining to the tune of $1500 for a stainless steel liner and the non=burnable fill around it. Forget what it's called.

I'd much prefer to have wood heat, and wood is readily available here. If I had my druthers, I'd have an ex=terior wood furnace to heat water pipes... house, shop, greenhouse, etcf.

Darius, I did not know what it costs for a liner. Several years ago I decided I really needed to have my chimney cleaned since it had never been done. So, I called someone from the yellow pages (not many in there since we are such a small county). A young man came out to do the job. I was sitting in my livingroom reading a book when I heard something, not sure what, hitting the sides of my fireplace. It just kept coming. for about 4 or 5 minutes. I was yelling for someone to tell me what was going on.

Well, come to find out, the chimney tiles had all fallen down and broke on the way down. From the very steep peak of my roof to the basement which would be about 35 to 40 feet. At least. I have no idea why this happened. The only thing I can think is that they were not cemented in place. I called my brother-in-law who was a kind of Jack-of-all-trades, and he came up and looked at it and said he could put one of those pipes in. Flexible I think he said. I have to admit it never dawned on any of us to call my insurance company, or the company of the young man who started the ball rolling.

But, my BIL also said he could redirect the smoke from the fireboxes into the chimney on the rest of the system. Which is:

In the basement I have an electric furnace with a wood backup.
And, an airtight wood burning stove in what could be a bedroom, or den.

On the main floor I have a circulating fireplace in the living room, and a wood cook stove in the dining room, besides my double wall oven and cooktop in the kitchen.

In the loft, I have a fireplace.

The man who built this house for his family definitly was not going to get cold.

All of these except for the wall ovens and cooktop have chimneys. Almost all of the chimneys are co-lateral. I think that is a word I could use.

Anyway, it is interesting to know how much that liner would cost. Should have had it done then. At least I should have called my insurance company. Lord knows I pay enough in premiums.

Jeanette

Hi ,

I had a liner put in about 10 years ago in my previous house. That cost $500. and as far as I could tell did not make the least bit of difference. It was put in to raise the overall height of the chimney as our hot water heater kept snuffing out. This was a cinderblock chimney.
Our current house is heated by a combination of wood stove, propane portable heaters and electric heaters. The previous owner used a propane furnace which is still in place but propane has gotten very expensive to use on that scale. When we get the outdoor furnace we'll be able to use all the existing runs which will save a lot of money.
Th outdoor furnace cost varies by the size you need as well as the distance from your house where it has to be located. If you are even considering one you should pay a visit to your local code enforcement as the rules vary even by townships. If you or a family member is handy you can save yourself the cost of installation. Paul is handy but lacks the time it would take to get the job done in a reasonable time frame so I've encouraged him to have it professionally done. It will add some to the cost but sure save us from an awful lot of arguments!
Too bad you didn't call your insurance company as they would have collected from the business that did the damage.

MollyD

I always thought a chimney liner was more for safety than anything else.

Sometimes for safety Jazzpumpkin but sometimes for other reasons as in my case.

MollyD

And mine. Jeanette

Yes, Molly I should have called them. Live and learn.

The last two days have been exceptionally windy here. Gust of over 40mph all day long and the GH is holding up well. I was in there today. No sign of any problems but I don't like being in there when it's blowing like this. Call me chicken but I kept thinking how little there was between me and any branches that might drop so I left it rather quickly without getting any work done. Things should be better tomorrow so maybe I can get some work done then.

MollyD

Do you have quite a few trees overhead Molly? Are they the brittle kind? That could be a problem. It might be expensive, but later on you might want to think about putting up a framework with some fencing over it. I would imagine hog wire or something like that would work.

Jeanette

We're surrounded by walnuts and locust here. Only one is close to the GH but strong winds could make a branch travel towards the GH.
Not much point to overhead fencing since it would cut out the light which we don't get much of in the winter months.

Got more wiring done this morning. I now have two working outlets in there. If the weather cooperates I hope to be done with the wiring by next Monday and possibly the insulation too. After that comes the solar pool cover.

MollyD

That's what I want to see. Not because I don't think you can do it, but because I cannot envision it. Good for you to get the wiring done.

I'll get a photo once it's up Jeanette. With just wiring going in there really isn't much to show at this point.
Got to get more insulation in too. And a window, and an automatic vent opener, and so forth! I've begun moving a few of my daylily seedlings out there cause they've been really hurting for more light.

MollyD

There really is a lot more to it than just putting it up and putting all of your plants in there isn't there? Lots of work. Did you get your snow? We got about an inch last week and it has been so cold that we still have it. Suppose to warm up and rain tomorrow which will be kind of nice 'cause I have slash piles that need to be burned.

When did you start your daylillies? Is this the first time you have planted them from seed? I did some Cannas a couple of years ago and they bloomed for the first time this year. Kind of makes you feel good from seed.

Jeanette

Seems to be a ton of work. Just when I think there is light at the end of the tunnel I find that I need to buy/do a few more things!This morning it was 28 outside and 35 in the GH which is not good. If it's that cold in there now it will be below freezing in January when we're in the minus digits. That means more work to do in there NOW!
Snow has been missing us everytime. Hits north or west of us mostly.
What's a slash pile?

Do you mean when did I start raising daylilys? some 30 years ago. This is the first year working with them from seed. Never thought about doing that before (no idea why!). I've been sprouting bought seeds but this past week I've been sprouting seeds I crossed this summer. I'm excited about those! I currently have about 100 seedlings some of which are now in the GH (as of yesterday). I have to go buy some more soil to pot some more up and I've got about another 100 seeds soaking that need to be in soil by tomorrow. In the fridge there is probably another 200 seeds. I'm staggering their sprouting so I don't get overwhelmed by the job.
I've never done Cannas. Only time I've seen them has been in commercial plantings. Here they have to be dug up each fall and stored over the winter so I tend to avoid them. I once grew dahlias and they were the same. I got tired of the job so I gave them up.
I have a rose that I grew from a seed. Got the seeds online from a rose hybridizer in the mid '90s. Of about 30 seeds only two grew and one died the first winter. The other has been with me since. Last year I moved from my old home to this one and couldn't take the whole plant with me so I took a runner. It's thrived so I'm looking forward to flowers in a year or two (like it's mama did). As a rose it will never win prizes but I love it cause I grew it. Big loose pink blossoms with a lovely scent. Blooms most of the summer too. About 6 ft high at maturity so I do know what you mean when you say growing from seed makes you feel good (G).

MollyD

A slash pile is the garbage wood left over from logging. After they are done getting the timber out to go to the mills they bring in an excavator and pick up all of the stuff left over on the ground and put it in piles. Slash piles. A lot of the time this stuff is left on the forest floor for compost to rejuvenate the ground for the future vegetation. However, we did some logging in 1996 and did that so now I was more concerned with fire hazzard and since we left the stuff in 96 I didn't feel it necessary to leave it. Now they come in and burn the piles. Once it starts raining or snowing good.

How exciting to grow and bloom your own hybridized Daylillies. You have a major project going. What do you do with them when they are ready to plant out? Do you sell them? Or keep them for your own landscaping?

AND growing a rose from seed!! That is something I never considered doing. That is pretty cool. It sounds beautiful.

The Canna seeds, just a few, were sent to me by a DGer. They bloomed the year after I planted them. No, I don't dig them or Dahlias either. I plant them in large pots so all I have to do is bring them in. I can either leave them in the pots if I don't have time to take care of them. Or, I knock all of the soil off and handle them as I do the Begonias. I find they do just as well as they do in the ground if the pot is big enough. Normally a 14 inch pot for the Dahlias. I only put the Cannas in a 10 incher and will do better by them next year.

I don't know what to tell you about the temp in your gh except that it sure needs that insulation and your solar cover. Won't any more work be hard to do when you get all of those plants growing in it?

I asked Paul about the wood you referred to as a slash pile. Here it's called slab ends and sold for burning in stoves and/or furnaces.
Well this is the first year I'm working with daylilys on this scale but next spring (once the ground warms up) I'll plants all the babies that look worth bothering with. That means runts of the litter will probably get tossed. I'm hoping they'll flower next summer since they were growing in the GH but normally I would expect to wait another year to see any flowers. Once they bloom the best are chosen to be kept and evaluated further since often a daylily's second year blooming may be totally different that it's first. Second rate blooms can be tossed, used as general landscaping (we have 10 acres here so there is a lot of room) or if they're nice, but just not good enough to work with, be given away to family or friends. Eventually I hope to have plants to register and sell. In the meantime I sell divisions of existing daylilys. I don't know how familiar you are with them but they don't grow true from seed. To get more of the same you have to divide them.
Yes it'll be harder to work with them in there but they were really showing the need for more light. No time left to keep them inside.
Really cold tonight and snowing here. Had to turn the heat up full blast as at 7pm it was 28 outside and 37 in the GH. By dawn everything in there would have frozen. Getting a propane heater tomorrow and adding that to the heat for now.

MollyD

Slash piles are the piled up junk left on the ground from harvesting and readying logs to go to the saw mill.

Slab wood is a by-product of the saw mills.

When we lived up in the north woods we could get a trunk load for 50 cents ;-)
back 'then' the car trunks were huge .......... lol

Sounds like too much work for me now.

Thanks Scoot. Guess I am not descriptive enough. Believe me, when you need them, a trunk load for 50 cents is not bad. There were many times when I would have loved to get a trunkload for 50cents. LOL. There were many times when I would have loved to have had either one, a trunkload or 50 cents.

This morning I wish I was heating the GH with the wood furnace, slabs or slash, wouldn't matter. Last night I had to turn the heat up and it was a good thing too. This morning it's 23 outside and 37 in the GH. I hate to think what it would have been if I hadn't turned up the heat last night!
I just cut the solar cover to fit. It's going to be awkward but I need to get it in there even if I have to remove parts of it when I'm working. More cold weather is forecast till Monday when a rise to the 50's is predicted.

MollyD

OK Folks, I've been watching this thread because I am very interested in the eventual outcome of this hoophouse!

I just have to add my 2cents now! Guess what our local sawmill does with what used to be slabwood, or cheap firewood by the bundle?? Now days they grind it up in a huge machine and color it and sell it to us gardeners as mulch!! Much more profitable than cheap firewood, don't you think ?? They also produce a finer product which I purchase for somewhat less, that breaks down faster and is not colored.

Just thought I'd add that info to the conversation! Legit

Legit,

I'm seeing something along those lines here too. No wasted materials seems to be the growing trend. Some is being turned into pressed boards and other composites.

MollyD

You all would not have appreciated the sight I came home to today then. Here are a couple of pictures. Off my livingroom deck. I have a half a mile of highway frontage so it looked like a forest fire.

One more. We did this more for cleaning up fire hazard than anything.

Almost frightening Jeanette! Guess the real thing is even worse.
I put up part of the solar cover today (covers the roof and north wall) and the foil back insulation. I could feel a difference with just that part done. I'll try to get photos tomorrow. Ran out of umph today. Everytime I do another job on the GH I think this is the worse job so far! Today was no exception. I did the solar cover by myself and that was very hard to do. It kept slipping down just when I thought I had it up. Much easier to do with two people. The insulation though was a piece of cake. I didn't nail or attach it in anyway because I'm hoping to re-use it next year when I get the HFGH.

MollyD