New to EB's

Pepper seedlings require heat and grow slowly so that is your situation to contend with. Provide heat if possible otherwise you are doing a good job! The hard way but it works...Next season start a litle later to make it a little easier on yourself. It has TO BE TOUGH LUGGING THE BAGS IN EVERY NIGHT?

Joy, ditto what T-plant said regarding the peppers, they need heat to grow and they aren't getting it in a cold 'greenhouse. I wouldn't dare let them get below 65º if I could help it as they'll really sulk. Peppers need high heat to germinate fast and continued heat to grow fast. Eggplants are also heat lovers. The tomatoes can easily grow fairly well down to about 50º with no problems. I wish you could run an extension cord to your g-house and even stick a light bulb in there, that would sure help. (Heck, I wish I were closer by...I'd come fix your electrical outlet for ya!)

Shoe (who woke up to 4" of snow here this morning. Sure is pretty!)

Joy again, you can buy a new outlet for less than $5.00 and put in on yourself, or your handyman could, in about 5 minutes. Simplest thing in the world. I could show you how, I've replaced a many of them. Or like Shoe and T said just run an extension cord.

Were you asking me what a space heater is? You know, a little heater you can plug in and move from room to room......

Has anyone tried a 3" dia. long burning candle as a temporary measure for a heat source in their GH? Seems like it would work.

Jerry

My DH tried that on a bivuac in a tent in Alaska. Burned his little shelter, [tiny little tent,] down.
Of course the tent was Much smaller than Joy's greenhouse.

This message was edited Mar 2, 2009 10:39 AM

Devota Did DH have to sleep on a bed of hot coals like Jeremiah Johnson..LOL

Tubbytee, LOL. No, He and his tent mate were severely scolded by the Sarge and the temp had gotten so low by then that everyone was sent back to the base.

Darkmoon dreamer: Don't know where you are buying your outlets at; but, my GFCI cost $18.00; labor was around $40 and it and my bathroom outlets work now. (smles). Had to wait til the guy could replace it, he is a retired Gulf Power guy, so know it's fine now. My neighbors house caught on fire last night, so was up all night, no one was hurt though.
joy

Glad you got it fixed Joy

This message was edited Mar 2, 2009 8:17 PM

I got another question :)

Let's see if I can word this correctly without confusing you and myself at the same time lol. I have 2 more EBs and 3 GPs to setup. I believe the GP is a little bigger than the EB in size but not by much. My question, when planting the GPs should I use their recommendations or use the EB recommendations? Reason I ask, there's a few things that doesn't quite make sense to me.

Here's the Garden Patch---- http://agardenpatch.com/pages.php?pageid=10

They recommend 8 peppers as opposed to 6 in the EBs. They recommend 6 cukes, melons or squash while EB says 4. They recommend 8 strawberries to 6 with the EB. I can kinda understand these since the GP is a little bigger and has a bigger reservoir. But....

Here's where I get confused.....while they recommended more plants for the ones I listed above. They recommend many less plants for corn and peas/beans. GP recommends 10 while EB says 16. Why the discrepancy in the 2? Does it have to do with the fertilizer? EB = 7-7-7.....GP = 5-6-5

I would go with the least amount of the two to be on the safe side where the number of plants are concerned. I own both GPs and EBs. The Garden Patch does not say to use dolomite lime either, and you really should. As the first time I used self watering boxes I used GPs and didn't use the lime, I had complete failure. It isn't as cold as predicted earlier, it's more like 30 degrees outside. With the greenhouse being so small, you can hook up a light inside, I have these spot lights that produce quite a bit of heat, you heat up the greenhouse, close it up, and pull the heater, it stays warm in there without after heating up the inside and no risk of a fire while I'm away.
joy

Joy -- Your spotlights may produce to much heat during daytime hours plus not allowing your plants to rest at night when they do their growing unless you use a timer?

TPlant: What I said I'd do, I did it, I heated up the greenhouse with the spot light, then I pulled the plug on the spot light and zipped the thing shut, stupid me did not realize that I would get stuck in south Florida, of which I did, got back 9 hrs later than I wanted to, and now all my plants except two are dead, I think. I watered them, opened up the greenhouse to get them some air, it hit 70 degrees the yesterday. No timer in the world could have helped that one. Now I will give it a few days to see what happens to them.

In the meantime, I checked on the cuke seeds I had planted just before leaving that had sprouted and I put them under the lights, opting to keep them on, because, yes, I don't have a timer yet; they were inside my house; but, I get home and they are huge already, and doing just fine They look great, of course, they were planted in Bob's starter kit with coconut coir. My chocolate cherry tomatoes, my romas and my vilma's are doing beatiful, and of the other ones that had been planted in the greenhouse, there are two that seem to be doing okay, so I didn't get back in time to save the others, in which case I will just have to start over.

It wasn't the cold that did them in though, it was the heat and not getting any air. Hopefully, my watering them and airing out the greenhouse will help, if it doesn't, then I can just replant some more seeds. I have learned quite a few lessons from this experience, one is that I will never, never, never plant my tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and cukes as early as I did this last time, I am going to wait at least another month next Spring to do that, lessons learned from experience. Our last official frost date for this area is April 7th.

Secondly, if I ever have to use the greenhouse again, I will make sure that it gets aired out at least once a day. Now, I think my peppers are gone, but won't give up on them yet; I'm a determined person, if they are gone, they will get dumped and I will then proceed to use Bob's baskets for my tomatoes seeds that I will start over again. All part of the learning process.

Bob: You should see Mike's tomatoes, he has 10 that are huge and his peppers are coming up and he has a cabbage coming along fine. Remember, he used your lay down flat coconut coir bags and your 5 gallon bags. He has what he says is a squash; but, since I didn't smuggle down any squash plants to him when I smuggled them down there, I suspect it's a black beauty eggplant? It has a huge purple flower on it? Suggestions?
joy

Its planting day at Gardenglories. Well I hope. I had some dental work done yesterday and I will do what I can.

Tomatoes going in the EB's. Direct planting of beans and squash. My sugar snap peas that I planted in the fall made it thru every freeze and is now taking off and should be blooming soon.

I got into a tooth issue during the last freeze and left my beautiful seedlings outside. They made it thru i n the garage, but I didnt water. Im beside myself, altho they have perked back up. I have never had a tomato seedling look as good as these.

Joy -- I thought you had someone taking care of the greenhouse? The vents must be opened during the day as the sun will act as a magnifying glass and build up tremendous heat. Closing the vents at night holds some of the heat to protect the plants. Commercial growers have mechanically controlled vents that open and close automatically plus a fan to circulate air. I learned that the same way as you but was unable to save my tomatos after only one day of closed vents. Now is your time to start fresh seeds anyway so it is not to late.

Im planting some more today too. I want to try to extend the season right up until the 4th of July, then its just OVER. Thats OK, just in time to plant the fall seedlngs and hope for just a few more.

TPlant: I have some vilmas, cupids, romas and chocolate cherry tomatoes going on right now in the flourescent room in the house. They are doing really well. If the peppers don't make it, and suspect they won't I shall have some more pepper seeds in a few days from Parks and will plant them in coconut coir. I also have some more eggplant seeds coming. My lettuce is really taking off, and I planted 50 more cukes, this time in coconut coir and they are doing beautiful so far. I'm out of bio dome sponges and they are on back order, so will stuff coir into the holes instead of the sponges and proceed with my planting, I will be fine. We learn from mistakes and that was a dousy I did, the poor babies couldn't breathe and it got so warm the day I was on my way back so they roasted. I think two will survive though. You should see Mike's tomatoes and cabbage and peppers. He used the layflat and the 5 gallon grow bags full of coir they are nice, I wish now I'd of taken my camera with me.

joy