Shade House to Gree.... uh... BlueHouse

[aclum]

Hi,

Some of you may remember my thread started July 25 in this section showing a mini-greenhouse or shade house I had constructed over a couple of my elevated salad tables. It was made from scrap lumber from a torn down fence and some pvc and shade cloth I had lying around. I'll post a photo of the shade house at the end of this post.

So now I'm in the process of converting it to a greenhouse for hardening off and growing my tomato seedlings until the weather warms up enough for planting out in the garden. Ever on the lookout for the most inexpensive ways to do things, I eventually came across this swimming pool solar cover. When I bought it, the list price was supposedly 49.99 and I got it for 19.99 with free shipping. I see that they're now selling it for 17.99 and giving the original price as 99.99!

http://www.amazon.com/Intex-Krystal-...lar+pool+cover

Heavy clear plastic sheeting struck me as sort of expensive for what it did and not a good size for my project, clear bubble wrap would have required taped seams making waterproofing a problem, and clear solar pool covers were very expensive - so I ended up with the blue solar cover as shown.

I originally, and naively, had looked up clear solar covers on amazon, and this brand, "Krystal Clear" came up and I assumed that it just looked blue in the photo because pools filled with water look blue. When I realized the cover was actually a translucent blue, I tried to cancel the order but too late.... So I had a blue pool cover to work with.

At least it's very durable (bubbles didn't pop under the weight of wheelchair wheels running over it) and should be a great insulator. With a little creative cutting, I managed to cover the screen top portion of the structure, with leftover material to use as weather stripping. (House is 6 x 8 and pool cover 15' in diameter). The "Bluehouse" skirt is double thicknesses of 3mil contractors trash bags stapled to 1x2's at the bottom edge. The center section can lift up in case I want to access the lower shelving from the outside for some reason- or want to vent the house some. I guess the black plastic will also help to warm or keep warm the inside of the structure.

Still working on setting up the interior and have a bit more work to do on the outside. So far I've just put up 2- 2 bulb 4' 6500K fluorescent lights over one of the beds and have one 8 watt LED in there just to see the coverage (not much!). Even though I still have the shade cloth attached and the blue translucent cover further limits the light, I think I'll be fine with the fluorescent (4 bulbs over each 2'x4' bed). And I can open the end doors during the day for more light if I want (and the weather's good).

Being a bit concerned about the blue color of the cover, I did a bit of research and came across this article on the effect of different colored plastic on plant growth:

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agricultur...ructures/light

The key sentence (for my purposes) was:

"A blue plastic is likely to produce a slower growing, shorter, tougher plant."

Which happens to be just what I want for plants that may have to wait a while before transplanting. Of course the daylight bulbs I have will change things a bit, but a least I'm OK with the blue now !

I guess this is enough for now (maybe too much), will post more details as things progress.

Here are the photos:

Shade House July 25
BlueHouse Front View
Lights set up
BlueHouse at dusk (zoom in for a good view of the cover material)
BlueHouse after dark

Anne

hum.... I tried twice but couldn't get the photos to load. Will try again in the morning. In the meantime, use your imagination !

[Redbaron]

Human ingenuity at work!

[Salsacharley]

Anne,

You better be careful using a solar pool cover as a greenhouse cover. The solar covers magnify heat tremendously. I put one on my lawn for only a couple of minutes when I took it off of my pool and it fried my grass almost instantly. I suggest you test it before putting anything important under it.

Charley

[aclum]

Hi RedBaron - Thanks for the comment !

SalsaCharley,

Thanks for the warning on the solar cover! I've read a bunch about the clear solar bubble covers working well as greenhouse covers, and I've read some complaints from the owners of the blue solar covers that they don't really heat up the pool water - but just basically keep what heat is there in the pool. So I'm hoping that I don't have too much of an issue with overheating. Also, there will be a lot of airspace between the cover and the plants (not like setting a cover directly on a lawn) which should mitigate overheating a bit.

But I'm aware of the potential for problems, so I'll be monitoring the temps before I put any plants in there. The AutoPilot desktop CO2 (plus temp and humidity) monitor I have has a feature to log data every half hour for 24 hours so once things are done, I'll close up the Blue House and see what's going on with the temps - and compare the data to the weather underground reports for the same time period.

I'm planning also to use a digital electronic temperature controller (like the one used for my humidity chamber) to control an incandescent bulb and fan for temp control. If it gets really warm, I can take the bubble wrap off the windows or leave the doors open and pull up the side skirts.

Thanks again, though, for the warning! I've accidentally fried plants before and it's not a pretty picture !

BTW, have a post into the "how to post photos" sticky and hopefully I'll get things figured out so I can post my photos before too long.

Anne