Show Your Seedlings Here

[Cole_Robbie]

Here's a flat of Bosky Chabarovsky:
http://i.imgur.com/PWjH2oJ.jpg

My first market is April 2nd. I should be there with dwarfs to sell.

[imp]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Thanks. It snowed this morning. The temperature was about 35 outside. I checked the plants and it was 80 inside the cover, nice and humid too, from the water tanks. And that's with just 750 watts of heat going. If I was trying to heat the entire structure to that temp, it would take more like 7500 watts. That's been my journey in struggling with trying to heat a greenhouse - it works a lot better when the space you're trying to heat is minimized.

I have a forecast low of 30 and a freeze warning for tonight. It should stay in the 70's under that cover. My plants end up being the warmest on freezing nights. That's the only nights they get heat.


edit: Make that a low of 29, plus 20 mph winds. This is not tomato weather.

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Here's a flat of Bosky Chabarovsky:
http://i.imgur.com/PWjH2oJ.jpg

My first market is April 2nd. I should be there with dwarfs to sell.

Having that water for the humidity is a good idea! Glad the seedlings are staying nice and toasty warm, since you are getting such cold weather up there.

I wore shorts and a tank top to be outside today and only got coolish just now.

[BigVanVader]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

I have freezing temperatures forecast for the next two nights, so I had to rig up a cover for my plants. I filled two big troughs of water under the benches, and will be running a 750 watt electric heater under the benches next to the 220 gallon water trough. The hoops are 1/2" cpvc and the plastic is just the cheap painter's drop cloths.

http://i.imgur.com/vyQ7MYi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/56KETPF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/14z9GeI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vN5FJz3.jpg

And here's a sideways pic of a Bosky Chabarovsky, looking to be my first tomato of the year: http://i.imgur.com/oNfRYSX.jpg

What do you use to heat the water?

[Cole_Robbie]

Hopefully, the sun, during the day a little bit, anyway. And then I have an electric heater next to the tank, blowing against it. I'm not exactly trying to heat the water, but it's part of the overall plan of surrounding my small heat source with as much mass as possible. The heater is underneath the benches, which each have a sheet of plywood over them, and wall of plants over that. Electric heat is really bad about drying out air and making humidity plummet. But with all that water under the cover, it feels like a muggy summer night.

[BigVanVader]

Ah ok, I thought maybe you were using a drop in bucket heater. I may experiment with one this winter to see if I can keep the GH warm in deep winter, if so I can overwinter all my superhots and not have to move seedlings inside anymore. I found this and thought it was a good idea.
http://sandyacrepines.com/the-garbag...nhouse-heater/

[Gerardo]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Here's a flat of Bosky Chabarovsky:
http://i.imgur.com/PWjH2oJ.jpg

My first market is April 2nd. I should be there with dwarfs to sell.

Did you get the steel buckets for the dwarfs, or you gonna sell them as-is?

Very pretty plants.

[Cole_Robbie]

Thanks man. The bucket idea will depend upon budget; it would be microdwarfs, though. Mohammed and Hahns Gelbe are my two candidates for the buckets.

I counted flats tonight and came out at about 3,200 plants. Maneuvering through the last few freezing nights is the trick.

[imp]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Ah ok, I thought maybe you were using a drop in bucket heater. I may experiment with one this winter to see if I can keep the GH warm in deep winter, if so I can overwinter all my superhots and not have to move seedlings inside anymore. I found this and thought it was a good idea.
http://sandyacrepines.com/the-garbag...nhouse-heater/

Iam sure this is a dumb question, but is water going to still be good in a galvanized container, or would the heat cause a chemical reaction?

[BigVanVader]

I don't think so, A lot of troughs for livestock water are galvanized metal. I just liked the idea of the metal better than the plastic trash cans since the plastic can get to hot and melt if you forget to turn it off, which is something I am certain I would do.

[Grayson]

Taken this morning. The seedlings are now 39 days old.

[BigVanVader]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Thanks man. The bucket idea will depend upon budget; it would be microdwarfs, though. Mohammed and Hahns Gelbe are my two candidates for the buckets.

I counted flats tonight and came out at about 3,200 plants. Maneuvering through the last few freezing nights is the trick.

Dude you are a crazy man with that many seedlings! Don't worry though we both suffer from the same sickness.

[Cole_Robbie]

Some of those plants might get culled. The plants I had picked out for the high tunnel are not looking good at all:
http://i.imgur.com/EIYzIZC.jpg

Most of my plants look fine. Here's that same flat of Bosky I posted a pic of earlier: http://i.imgur.com/EO1TRo0.jpg

The sick plants...I have no idea. They are getting the same treatment as everyone else. It could be a bacterial problem due to the cold conditions; that's all I can think of. They look like they have never been fertilized, but they get the same light MG at every watering that the other plants do. I may repot them in the hopes they will grow out of it. I have to plant the high tunnel in about ten days or so. I don't want to put in plants that don't look good.

[Worth1]

This years experiment has shown me a lot.
Many of the tomato plants either wont set in the cold or set when it is warm.
As suspected the ones from Russia and the Ukraine have adapted very well here for early start and cooler weather plus warmer weather.
I am glad we had the hot spell to show me this.
Worth.

[Gerardo]

Repot and maybe they end up being decent pinch hitters. Some good ones in there.

The B Chab will be an easy sell.

[Cole_Robbie]

This morning: