Crickets Greenhouses 2007

we have a pole outside our door with a big bell on it.

In the old days, folks rang the big dinner bell so the farmers would know it was time to eat.

When I ring the bell, it will be time to eat tomatoes.

hm you wanna see tomatoes.

I didnt take a picture of the ripening ones yet.

green will have to do.

till tomorrow.

the brandywine have a couple weeks to go before ripening.
Same with the Beefmasters.

forgot the picture

someone requested a picture of the tomahooks that i use to tie my tomatoes to top of greenhouse with.

here goes
one of last years pictures

the tomatoes are really there, we now have proof. if we hear the bell ring does that mean come on over for tasting?


funny thing my sister gave me a bell from a cabin in the mountains and i have been thining of mounting it on my greenhouse.

a very nice crop you have there.

thanks

come on down!

I have some very impatient customers. Some stop by every week watching for the ripe ones even though i tell them it wont be until June 8th. One man didn't believe me and had to see for himself.

I will be up crap creek if they aint ready by then.

estimated ripe tomato around June 8th. Just around the corner.

where is it , i do not see it , is it red yet ???
pass the salt and pepper please

Actually had ripe tomatoes June 4th.
Sorry. I felt like I was here all alone. Plus I been obsessing over my Atlantic Giant Pumpkin.
I Have already sold $300 worth tomatoes.

I been making a mini tiny pvc hoop frame to put over my pumpkin for shade when it is big enough. I am watching a female bloom right now. should be ready to pollinate soon.
I actually had a pumpkin on the vine a few weeks ago but it was too close to the main trunk and had to cut it off. That was hard to do. Mentally.
If you ever really want a challenge in your garden, Grow a Giant Pumpkin. Guaranteed Challenge.
You won't believe how much goes into growing a giant pumpkin. And the stress of trying to make sure you actually grow a big one. This pumpkin is next to the road cause that is where my best soil is at other than the garden. And even though its my best soil, Its bad soil. I am counting on fertilizer to grow a big pumpkin. The soil sure wont do it. I have another spot picked out for next year and I have been hauling in manure little at a time. That spot is by the road too.
Sooooo, since the pumpkin is next to the road, I feel its even more important that the pumpkin gets pretty big just cause everyone is watching.

I havent taken any pictures lately cause I have lost my camera. Laid it down somewhere. It might even be in my truck.

Sometimes you feel like a NUT.


Cricket

Just came across this thread. How excellent, Cricket. Sometimes you feel like a nut... and then you taste a home grown, vine ripe tomato... and you know you aren't crazy after all! Good luck for a continued grand season.

Hey Cricket. You probably left your camera in one of those huge tomato vines. Probably find it while picking. If I was a little closer, I'd be over in a flash. I barely have small green ones, nothing to talk about, will be a couple more weeks before they are even big enough to thing about ripening. Best of luck with your crop. Becky

Found my camera. Taking pictures today.

oh boy i can hardly wait we will see lots of red ones i hope

Brandywines

MOre Brandywines

REady for the dinner table for sure
Brandywine

Beefmaster

Big Beef

I have alot more pictures but as you can see, I should be picking instead of posting.

i think i got a bad taste in my mouth is that dust or static yuck this computer screen is so dirty

cricket a very good job there

so she can grow a tomato what more could a man want in a woman
lol best of luck

Cricket, you're making my mouth water! :o)

Sadly, had 4 1/2 inches of rain past 5 days and been raining off and on for 3 weeks. Abnormal this time of year. So--90 % of tomatoes have cracked. There is no fixing that.
Deffinately a bad Year!

*&^^%&*()_*&^%%@#!#

sorry to hear that, that is why i gave up growing under the big sky

So sorry to hear this, Cricket. :o(

cricket, sorry to hear about the cracking but they'll still taste good. how many people do you have helping you with all of this. do you ever just sell the seedling plants or strictly the veggies?

I grow and sell veggie plants in the Spring along with hanging baskets and bedding plants and very few perennials. No one helps me with anything around here. Its just me, myself, and I.
Also with all the rain, the tomato plants have fungus now. I salvage the good ones for myself. If I am to grow tomatoes next year, I must figure out how to cool the greenhouse at a low cost keeping the poly on the greenhouse.
Side curtains, fans, shade cloth, and whatttttttttttt.ARGGGGGGGG
Cause I really like growing tomatoes-produce.

if u need help on the ventilation i would help u, havea good system in place and have the electrical all worked out email me and we can go from there

dirtdigging101 can you share some of your ventilation information on the forum? I have a small gh at home that gets too hot, and am looking at several for my new business, so I'd like to hear about it. Thanks, Legit

ok here goes first thing is the length of the gh should be no more than 4x the width 24 x 96 is nice 20 x 96 u need a bit more fan/ exhaust.

side curtains and openings n the roof do not get it or most things, you have to pull air thur the plants, helps growth.

u need to calculate the volume of your green house, this means cubic feet. a 24 x 96 gh has about 24,000 cubic feet , of volume. this air needs to be exhausted every minute, i add about 25% more for good measure. so we are talking about 30,000 cu feet of air per min. a 3' dia fan will do about 11,ooocfm, a 48 inch fan dia will do about double that 22,000 cfm.

so if building new think two fans of equall strength and work backwards for the size of the green house. for crickets 20 foot wide hoop house 96' long i would use one 48" dia fan. cost from farm tek is 560 dollars with a gravitey shutter it would be installed on one end of the gh

at the other end u need a 4' X 4' MOTORIZED SHUTTER, COST IS 250 dollars from farm tek.

both swhould be installed 2' off the ground and are wired to a two stage 220 volt dual stage thermostat that costs about ^ 70 dollars. the feed for power to the gh is number 12 wire 220 volts.

set the thermostat for say 77 degreees at 77 degrees the shutter opens on one end and at 80 degrees the fan comes on, be sure all guards are in place on the fan. as temp cools the reverse happens. fan goes off shutters close. on a sunny cold day in the early spring this happens many times a day.. so it gets hot fan stays on more and more soo gh temp gets to over 90 degrees.

u need an aditioal thermostat single stage 25 dollars and it goes above the first thermostat and is set to 90 degrees
and is wired to a seloniod valve that opens a water valve to wich u connect a few ends to a garden sprayer outside the green house rigth in front of the middle of the intake shutters. this gets u about 5 to 10 degrees cooler.

ok it is getting hotter, get out the shade cloth and cover the roof of the green house i like a about 50 % and just cover the roof

this gets u a nother 5 degreees cooler

still getting hot back to the water line and a timer that comes on for a minute every 10 or 1 minutes and a row of sprinklerd down the roof of the grreen houe, out side up on the roo, u want to wet the shade cloth and have the sun evaportate it away and dry the shade cloth, evaporative cooling oh boy green huse will stay at 90 or so
grow tomatoes grow tomatoes

i keep my rows 6 to 8 feet from the shutters and fans so a 96' long gh gives me 80 feet of growing by the width of the gh

dirtdigging has summed it up well. A proven cooling combination is adequate ventilation, mist, and shade cloth.

I would add this: when calculating the cfm of the exhaust fan, consider a minimum of 1cfm/cu.ft GH volume (one air exchange a minute). One study (sorry, can't find the reference) demonstrated that one GH air exchange a minute brought GH temp down to 8F above outside temp, but if you went to one GH air exchange every 30 seconds, you came down to 4F above outside temp. So 2cfm/cu.ft. GH volume, compared to one, drops you another 4 degrees, on average.

dirtdigging-I would say to put your fan and shutters up higher than 2' from the ground-for a few reasons.
One-hot air rises so get it out faster-esp in the winter and spring when the fan doesn't have to be on as much.
Two-if the fans are that low, you cut off a bit of growing space because you don't want the air to hit the plants directly, and you don't want the plants to block the air flow, and in the winter, early spring-that air is cold!!
I have grhouses that size and I don't have motorized shutters-when the fan comes on, it pulls the shutters open. I am not sure in the late spring, summer that the temps even stay in the 77-80 degree range that long-in other words, that it jumps to 80 pretty fast and then the fan is on. If you have to scrimp on money-I would lose the motorized shutters.
With a 48" fan, you should have two 24" shutters. Ok-just saw where you said one 4'x4' shutter. I have two shutters-that go on either side of the door and small fans that hang from the ceiling, in the center of the grhouse, 1/3 and 2/3 down the grhouse. I wonder what the difference is in cooling between 1 and 2 shutters? I would have a hard time switching to one shutter...do you have the door to one side of the gable?

what is up tiger lilly? sorry could not resist. to be cleat my motorized shutters are on one end of the green house and my exhaust fans are on the othere end fitted with a gravitety shutter. so when the cold wind blows the shutters are closed tight. no other way to do it. putting the fans up hish sounds like where they should be but is not the best solution according to most "experts" getting air moving thru the plants is very important i am told.

for spring and the like circulating fans in the gh are a very good idea and ideal the ezhaust fan should be up very hing but that would mean a 3rd exhaust fan

it takes money but makes a nice system

i am going to be relocating to a new site in a few years and am planning on 28 x96' greenhouses in fact three of them so my garden hobby can pay for its self.

I know the exhaust fan is on one end and the shutters are on the other end, with the door. I am talking about when the fan is on and pulling the cold air through the grhouse in the winter/early spring-that is air that can be so cold (esp up here in zone 7) that you don't want to be in its path-or the plants.

I think what you mean by moving air through the plants-is a form of "toughening" or keeping them shorter and preventing stretching? Is that what you have heard? It is true that it helps, to a degree, and also provides good air circulation to help prevent fungus. But the total benefits of moving the air thru the grhouse, i think, outweigh having a shutter directly in front of a growing area. In fact, after 10'-20' or so, the force of the air moving thru the grhouse dissipates and you can't even feel the air moving that strongly half way down the grhouse. As well-having two shutters would provide more direct exposure to the plants (in terms of wind) than one-2' off the ground.

Why would having the exhaust fan (one 48") off the ground mean having a 3rd one? Where is the 2nd one? lol I love these debates...alot is learned from them, I think.

Out of curiousity-do you have a grhouse this big right now? They are monstrosities, and the rules seem to be different with them than with smaller grhouses, don't you find?

no debate here, is hard to stay on the same page. for 3 fans i was refering to a large 24 or 28' wide x 96 or 120' long gh. two main 48" fans for ventilation but a 3rd one up higher like over the door perhaps for those early spaingtime cold weather or maybe a shutter up higher for the cold air have never done this but will consult with a supplier sut as Atlas when i do do it.

We are working on getting electricity to the big greenhouse. Right now I only have extention cord out there. The other three greenhouses have electricity.
Deffinately want the 48"exhaust fan and shutters. I priced the fan for $565 shipped.
I think I need two of them.

crickett, for your atlas 20" cold frame the 48' fan will give u 1.47 ait exchanges per min. that will be enough

As a full fledge "lurker" on all of the Cricket GH threads.Any new updates for this one?

Sorry, I been remodeling home, adding on rooms, remodeling Sunroom/Office so I can grow more seedlings without having to heat a big greenhouse so early.
Making 3 8ftx2ft germination tables with heat mats in the sunroom. They get all day sun except mid day. Hoping I dont have to use lighting. That gives me room to germinate 24 seedling trays of seeds. Approximately 9000 seeds . I have to run in and out of the cold weather so much now. All right here at my finger tips. AT the moment, trying to figure out how I want to put a sink with hot water in the sunroom with a hose attached to it in order to moisten my seedlings easily.
I need to order some 3 foot long hanging basket hangers so I can grow more baskets in the greenhouse. These hook hangers hook onto the perlin and hang down past pre-existing hanging baskets so you have a whole row of baskets below what you already have. double the production.

Mean while, I have ordered all my seed for 2008..
Double Petunias were a huge seller last year along with dwarf large blooming zinnias.
This year growing more double petunias and trying double impatients. Also hoping that i can grow zonal geraniums from seed. My first try ever.
I just love germinating seeds. Dont you?

Cricket


This message was edited Oct 29, 2007 3:09 PM

yes i luv growing stuff from seed!! Glad to hear life is going good for you!
Sounds like you have been busy-that doesn't surprise me though.
I am winding down the season here-sad sad sad No more fresh mators till next yr! sigh
well take care n keep us posted!
dori

Cricket, Do you start any seeds w/o a heating mat? When do you usually do it? Do you sow any seeds directly in the hanging baskets? I was looking at your pics of all the flats of seeds you have and wanted to know, are the seeds all started in them? You know like the "six packs" we buy in the stores. I've been trying to save my "six packs" when I buy something, b/c I'd like to try growing some things from seed. I'd love to do my own hanging baskets but they never turn out like ones I buy in the store. I figured it was from me sticking plants in there instead sowing directly in the basket. Maybe it's just my placment of the plants.
Dawn