What a brilliant piece of work, in terms of designing, planting, filming month by month and assessing the outcomes of this huge but clearly successful project. Thank you so much for sharing! 💚❤💚
@@TheTenterhookTimes The video is very nice and with many great info but the birds drive me crazy, I do love birds but please not when someone is talking and explaining important things!
We weren't bothered by them and they left us well alone. It helped they were high up I think. Be interesting to see if wasps return this year and build another nest. Thanks for the comment 😀👍
People get so riled up about all sorts of insects like wasps and ants without understanding why they show up or what their function is in the ecosystem and if they're even harmful. I see it in gardening groups all the time.
Great and very useful information. However, here is a piece of advice for future videos. The music from the banjo is quite disturbing when you have both birds chirping and someone talking at the same time. For those with impaired hearing, it is almost impossible to distinguish words from all other sounds. Other than that, the video was really worth watching.
Hi Phoebe, thanks and really glad you enjoyed watching. I hope you can find someplace in your city to grow fresh food - I don't know where you live but in the UK there are some opportunities (though never enough) to grow on urban allotments for example 🌱💚
Decades ago I built a passive solar pit greenhouse. It still functions. Just a few years ago, I had a contractor build me a smallish passive solar home in a moderate climate. Not warm and not particularly cold. It is remarkably efficient and cheap to operate. It was not cheap to build though.
Hi Jim, thanks for the comment, it's great to hear about other people's experiences. I love watching videos about greenhouses and passive solar homes too - all the best with your place - it must be great to have such a home 💚
Great video! So much information jam packed under 30 minutes. Questions: 1. How much did it cost to make the new greenhouse? 2. Could painting the cement brick back wall black help retain even more heat? 3. How long did this project take to finish? 4. How did you regulate the water distribution when you were away for such a while? 5. How on earth did you manage to eat all of that food? 6. With the tomatoes and fig issues, how would have constructed a more efficient way to manage them better? 7. If you can do it all again, what are a few things that you would do differently? 8. How many acres of land were you planning on? 9. In what way were you able to keep records of the temperature inside the greenhouse? 10. What happened with the wasps? 11. How you thought about writing a book about your experience?… to note all of the many tips, tricks & strategies you’ve learned? Thank you so much for your time and patience in answering these questions.
Hi Maige - wow, that's a lot of questions! Glad you enjoyed the video - some answers you will find in response to other comments that people have made. So... we'll just pick a few of your questions to reply to if that's OK 😂 4. The type of water irrigation we use comes on automatically every day for a set period so it's easy to go away for short periods - we look at the weather forecast and see how hot it will be and decide how long it should be on for each day. 5. We've been eating fresh organic fruit and veg for months - it's wonderful. We still have a Turks Turban squash in our pantry even now, they store superbly and are highly recommended! 6. With the tomato issues I think we will just plant less this year and use the spare space for other lower growing crops. 10. The wasps lived their life cycle and then died for the season as happens (except for the queen who will have hibernated somewhere for the winter) - we're hoping a new generation of wasps will come and live in the greenhouse this summer 🤞 11. No time to write a book - but we do plan to post further video updates about our garden including the greenhouse - so watch this space! 🌱😀
A couple of quick tips with very little cost: Paint your back wall with a flat black paint. This will help absorb sunlight during the day and radiate heat back during the night acting like a solar thermal battery. On the outside, build up the soil at the wall to within 15cm (to prevent moisture migration to water sensitive materials) of the wood construction. This will take advantage of the earth's natural tendency to stay around 10C throughout the winter. A form of earth thermal power source. 6 mill poly sheets under the roof and on the walls to create a thermal insulation air barrier. A costlier addition: install a series of culverts below the frost line behind the wall. use low CFM air circulating fan (solar powered) to exchange air from the below earth culverts and inside the greenhouse.
Thanks for your tips which do make good sense for some climates and situations. We're going to monitor growing and harvests for a couple of years before we make any modifications to the greenhouse as we feel what we have does suit our needs. We just want to enjoy our gardening for a little while now!
We did the same for ages before taking the plunge. It's great seeing what other people do - very inspirational - so we enjoy being able to share our ideas too 😃
Thank you so much for taking us along the journey of the first year of your greenhouse. There is lots to learn here, and I will be applying it to my greenhouse build this year. 😊
Wow! You did such a wonderful job documenting your beautiful greenhouse. The photography and the simple explanations were a delight to experience. We live in a similar climate, also on a hillside and you have me dreaming of the possibilities! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you! We thought from the start that it would be a great project to document, not just for ourselves but so that we could share what we had learnt with others who might be interested too. We have really appreciated learning from other greenhouse growers on TH-cam. Appreciate the comment and wish you all the best for turning your dreams into a reality! 😀
Looks Great! I have a polycarbonate lean to against garden shed and want to enlarge just a bit and replace the polycarbonate panels with heat sink in floor. I know about microclimates all too well as we were hit with frost a couple days ago and wiped out Many plants. Local weather never warned of frost.
I have only just found your channel and what a delight. You have done so well documenting the build of your greenhouse and the first year in production. What a lovely place to live and grow fruit and veg.
How wonderful! You must be so pleased with it. You could definitely get more use out of it in December and January though. I grow lettuces, salad rocket, miners lettuce, celery and Asian greens in my polytunnel that gets no direct sun in December or January! You need to plant more plants in winter than you would need in spring or summer to make up for the slower growth, but I’m sure in that fabulous greenhouse you’d get bumper crops! I also sow some brassicas and in October and overwinter them in 6inch pots on the benches, I plant them in the beds in January and they’re ready by late May just before the tomatoes go in. You can sow Napoli carrots in late September in a deep container (i use a plastic stacker storage box with holes drilled in the bottom) and overwinter them in there too. They’ll be ready in April. Hanging baskets in there would be great for lettuces in winter too. Check out my go to channel for year round self sufficiency. Steve really knows his stuff. It’s only my second year and I was almost self sufficient in veg all year last year. There’s loads of links in the description to his gardening ebook, monthly sowing and growing guides and individual growing guides. It’s all free to access too (though you can use the buy me a coffee icon to donate if you wish) Check him out, he’s wonderful and so generous to pass on all his knowledge like he does. youtube.com/@SteveRichards
Thanks for all your suggestions - it's great to hear about other people's experiences! 👍 We had definitely planned to grow more through the depths of winter but this year it hasn't been possible due to family caring responsibilities which we had to prioritise. We're taking note though and look forward to extending the growing season further in future 😀
I live in zone 5b, and have been wanting to grow figs in a windy rural area. This is wonderful; I was just given a pallet of bricks that I intend to use to do this along the front of my property line over an illegally placed sidewalk that shall now act as a pathway. My city was given 1 foot leeway into my yard for a sidewalk and they placed it ten feet into my yard when it was laid decades ago, so I'm claiming ownership. 😎😁 The kicker? They infringed on my property for the sake of a young tree... that destroyed part of the sidewalk. 😆
Wonderful, helpful video, thank you. Great idea with cutting the hoops for extended window openers👍 The birdsong hit the exact frequency where it turned the sound down and activated sub titles (a minor irritation). Thanks again for your efforts and time taken to edit and share this 👌👏
Hi Gloria, thanks - the wasps never came anywhere near us whilst we were working in the greenhouse - too busy with their own endeavours! Is CA Canada or California perhaps...? Thanks for watching 😀
This was a well put together video. My only complaint is that his voice was often drowned out by the bird song. Also, the only wasp I've heard of that will kill aphids is the parasitic wasp which is only about 1/10 inch long, very tiny. I've heard people say that common wasps kill aphids, I just haven't seen anything from a University that says that. Good work and I'm glad the new greenhouse got things all sorted out.
Thanks for the info about the wasps. We'll have to read up about that. Either way we like the wasps. They started two nests this year but unfortunately they didn't progress much at all before being abandoned, so we miss them. Hopefully they have a good nest somewhere else! 🤞
I like wasps. I let them be if the nests aren't close to the house. I have recently watched a video where a regular brown wasp was eating a tomato horn worm, so that's good news. I like the idea of IPM, but you have to get everything just right or you're losing crop which doesn't work for a small garden you're trying to feed yourself from. I've also never seen any IPM source discuss mosquitos and I am a magnet so I still have to spray the yard and use deet and BT bits.
Your channel just popped up and the way you've presented the video is brilliant, full of info and I've subscribed. Will look forward to watching your videos. Hello from across the water in Ireland 🤗
Hi David, thanks for watching in North Carolina and later on we'll be over to check on your solar greenhouse! We love seeing how others grow their own fruit and veg 😀
An idea: You could paint the back wall white so more light is reflected onto the plants! I don't think it will affect the temperature storage capacity as heat is taken up again through the room temperature. Now that the 2nd season is almost done, are there things you would do differently if you built such an amazing greenhouse again? Thanks for the great video :)
Hi Erwin, we may do this at some point in the future, it certainly is a good suggestion and I've seen it mentioned elsewhere (including on this Comments page) so we'll see. For now we're just enjoying the gardening!
Thank you for this fantastic video, one of the best vids on passive solar greenhouse design and performance I've seen in years. We are building a smaller version, very similar to yours in design. Love your ingenuity. Cheers from your friends in Canada. 🥰
Hello Canadian friends - we watched a lot of videos about Canadian greenhouses when we were doing our research. There are some amazing greenhouses there! Wishing you all the best with your greenhouse project! 👍😀
Really enjoyable, glad you kept the Wasps, I know they eat pests, good little helpers. Did a quick search, they are estimated to eat 14million kilograms a year in UK. Just hope it's not one large caterpillar. Cheers Mick
Hi Mick, that's an amazing statistic you've found out about how much wasps can eat in a year!! All the more reason to welcome them into our gardens. Thanks for a brilliant comment! 😁👍
I really like your new greenhouse. The only thing about it that surprised me was that you stuck with the poly-tunnel for so long. I've two suggestions you might want to try. 1) Paint the interior of your back wall flat black to increase solar absorption during the winter. 2) Add insulation to the outside of the back wall to break the thermal bridging of the concrete that pulls heat out of the greenhouse during the winter. Still, I think you did a great job with what you've already done. I'm a bit envious.
I love your straightforward, down to earth approach! This makes me more confident I too can build a passive greenhouse! So many channels make this such a complicated, scientific endeavour that it becomes quite frightening and overwhelming! I’ll just come back here for a bit of ‘ahhh, that’s better!’ 😂
Ah, that's lovely, thank you! We too find some of the channels a bit overwhelming - we wanted to just keep it simple and see if it worked for us, which it has pretty much so far! We're having fun anyway on our greenhouse journey! 😄
Painting the wall black helps absorb heat from the sun. Digging a trench to lower the greenhouse to about 6 feet below ground level will help insulate against temperature fluctuation!
That's an impressive upgrade. Did you know pinching every second cucumber flower extends the productive life of the plant? You could start a compost heap outside at the back and pipe in the heat, or just leave it keeping the back wall warmer than otherwise.
What a lovely video I’ve just watched, very successful, can I ask, what variety of fig tree you grow and how do they taste? thinking of getting one for my new greenhouse this year🤷♂️
Hi Stephen, the fig is a Brown Turkey and the ripe fruits are absolutely delicious, incredibly sweet and juicy. They do particularly well during a really hot summer. Hope you find one for your greenhouse too 🤞👍
Great stuff guys. I am a little further down the river, and am also in a bit of a frost pocket. I have a central path in my greenhouse with supports for tomatoes on either side. I ha e overwinter stuff on the path this year by wrapping fleece around the supports and putting bubble wrap over the top..
Living by the river is wonderful and we wouldn't swop for anything, but frost pockets can be a real pain for growing! Good luck with your greenhouse - we use a lot of fleece too, inside our old polytunnel regularly and outside too.
Love this. Our polytunnel collapsed this winter in Romania after a snow period, it was already damaged from high winds but this killed it completely. We aren't at the property all the time as the main house isn't complete, we have a cabin in the forest which we use a few times a month. It's time for an upgrade. Came here just looking for design ideas, what you guys have done is great as well as being practical it looks brill. We wont go anywhere as big, 3 x 5.5 mtrs, thanks for many tips!
Hi Cheryl - polytunnels and snow definitely don't mix well! It doesn't snow here that often but when it did in the past we were always rushing out to clear the polytunnel - in fact one of the first ever videos on our channel shows us doing just that!! 😂 Glad you picked up a few tips - we learnt loads from watching other people's greenhouse videos on here. All the best with your future gardening endeavours 👍
This is wonderful. Not sure if there is an accounting anywhere; the financial investment is often steep but a well done building such as this likely adds value upon resale, beauty, and of course endless supplies of the freshest veges. I’m smitten with the frog/toad. ❤️
Hi Barbara, thanks for your comment - it is an investment of time and money of course - but well worth it from our point of view! Glad you liked our frog! 🐸🥰
You could source a lot of the materials second hand. You just need to be creative. I think a solar powered fan would help with the ventilation. Also having a way of letting in the ladybugs for your greenfly and other pollinators would be a good option.
We watched videos about the Chinese green houses too - they're absolutely amazing and made us realise that we could try a new approach to a traditional greenhouse in our own garden to help extend the season here. Thanks for the comment 😃
Thanks! 😀 We were intrigued by the wasps. I want to try and find out more about them. They have made nests in our garden sheds before but nothing as massive as this nest!
Well done to the both of you 😊 Your temperature moderation is very impressive indeed 👍 I must add; if you paint the back wall black it will much improve it’s performance as a heat sink.
Thank-you! It's pretty hot in there already at this time of year but I suppose a black wall would improve heat retention during cooler months. We shall have to think about it! 👍
@@TheTenterhookTimes Along with painting the wall black you might add dirt behind the wall the wall's upper portion so the heat has somewhere to go other than inside during the hottest part of the day. Then at night - when it cools down - the heat stored in the earth will seep back into the space keeping it warmer at night and at the beginning and end of the season.
You can further improve the greenhouse by thermaly insulating the outside of the blockwall. Even a white thermally insulating paint woul make good improvement.
Very nice!!!! i am in process of a similar project here in the US. Watching the plants grow in your house gave me the idea of a trellis along my block wall. I think I will insert some metal brackets as I am building for it to attach to. Look forward to seeing how this year goes for you!!!
Thanks, really great that you took an idea to try in your own greenhouse. This year our young vine is growing very fast up the block wall at the back so soon it will be covered in foliage (and one day hopefully grapes too!) 🤞
A great use for the old polytunnel frame is to screen in the entire thing for protected outdoor growing. We live where summer rains are often an unpredictable, so have a poly roof with screened sides so we could control watering. We also set the frame on 4 foot high pony walls to raise the tradionally low ceiling. We also pull a large shade cloth over it during the hottest summer months, creating a huge temp drop when you enter. Lastly, raised beds inside have made gardening a joy. We haven't seen a caterpillar for 5 years!
You basically built a tiny house designed like a lounge soaking up the sun but with more light coming in compared to an average home. But yeah with a ton of money great. I think u have done the right thing. Looks so cold and surprised you were actually growing stuff. Summers prob are 6 weeks there because by the time it heats up the days start to shorten rapidly . Heat is what you need given your climate. Thanks for sharing.
Paint the north wall black , a flat black. You may get as much as 10*F out of it. And if you want to grow in the winter, add a insulating Sutter to close off South wall.and the west side. I hope you already insulated outside of the north wall to hold more heat. If not you might want to think about adding it. You have a beautiful greenhouse, thank you for sharing.
Hi John, thanks for watching and for your suggestions 👍 For now we will continue growing, harvesting, monitoring and then see if we need to refine our design 😀
What a brilliant piece of work, in terms of designing, planting, filming month by month and assessing the outcomes of this huge but clearly successful project. Thank you so much for sharing! 💚❤💚
Thank you for watching Pam and for your lovely comment! 😀👍
@@TheTenterhookTimes The video is very nice and with many great info but the birds drive me crazy, I do love birds but please not when someone is talking and explaining important things!
@@TheTenterhookTimesIf you are unaware, Wasps kill Bees 🐝
It is definitely a brilliant piece of work! Exceptionally Well Thought Out Video! 🦋🌿
@@eveadame1059 Thank you! 😀
It's pretty cool how you just left the wasps to do their thing and weren't bothered by them!
We weren't bothered by them and they left us well alone. It helped they were high up I think. Be interesting to see if wasps return this year and build another nest. Thanks for the comment 😀👍
While I’m scared of wasps, I can imagine it’s like having scary free employees in the greenhouse and the garden
Wasp eat pest too
People get so riled up about all sorts of insects like wasps and ants without understanding why they show up or what their function is in the ecosystem and if they're even harmful. I see it in gardening groups all the time.
Came for the greenhouse and stayed for the birds. A well done video!
Thank you - we love the birds too, they're all busy building nests at the moment, the garden is full of birdsong!🎶🎶 ❤
my left ear enjoyed the video.
Friggen awesome I want one
Great and very useful information. However, here is a piece of advice for future videos. The music from the banjo is quite disturbing when you have both birds chirping and someone talking at the same time. For those with impaired hearing, it is almost impossible to distinguish words from all other sounds. Other than that, the video was really worth watching.
Love the greenhouse. And that bird!
👍🦜😂
Thank you for sharing the highs and the lows of your new greenhouse, it is so fun to see a full year in the life of your plants and greenhouse too!
Mainly highs so far - such a wonderful space to spend time in! 🌞🌱Thanks for watching and commenting 😀👍
What abundance! Such an inspiration for someone who lives in the city and dreams of growing such a variety of fresh food
Hi Phoebe, thanks and really glad you enjoyed watching. I hope you can find someplace in your city to grow fresh food - I don't know where you live but in the UK there are some opportunities (though never enough) to grow on urban allotments for example 🌱💚
Decades ago I built a passive solar pit greenhouse. It still functions. Just a few years ago, I had a contractor build me a smallish passive solar home in a moderate climate. Not warm and not particularly cold. It is remarkably efficient and cheap to operate. It was not cheap to build though.
Hi Jim, thanks for the comment, it's great to hear about other people's experiences. I love watching videos about greenhouses and passive solar homes too - all the best with your place - it must be great to have such a home 💚
The cost of energy has only going up. I'm sure it will be well worth it over the lifetime of the building.
You did amazing work there. Joyful!
Thank you so much! 😀
Excellent, thank you.
Thanks for watching 🙌
Great video! So much information jam packed under 30 minutes.
Questions:
1. How much did it cost to make the new greenhouse?
2. Could painting the cement brick back wall black help retain even more heat?
3. How long did this project take to finish?
4. How did you regulate the water distribution when you were away for such a while?
5. How on earth did you manage to eat all of that food?
6. With the tomatoes and fig issues, how would have constructed a more efficient way to manage them better?
7. If you can do it all again, what are a few things that you would do differently?
8. How many acres of land were you planning on?
9. In what way were you able to keep records of the temperature inside the greenhouse?
10. What happened with the wasps?
11. How you thought about writing a book about your experience?… to note all of the many tips, tricks & strategies you’ve learned?
Thank you so much for your time and patience in answering these questions.
Hi Maige - wow, that's a lot of questions! Glad you enjoyed the video - some answers you will find in response to other comments that people have made. So... we'll just pick a few of your questions to reply to if that's OK 😂
4. The type of water irrigation we use comes on automatically every day for a set period so it's easy to go away for short periods - we look at the weather forecast and see how hot it will be and decide how long it should be on for each day.
5. We've been eating fresh organic fruit and veg for months - it's wonderful. We still have a Turks Turban squash in our pantry even now, they store superbly and are highly recommended!
6. With the tomato issues I think we will just plant less this year and use the spare space for other lower growing crops.
10. The wasps lived their life cycle and then died for the season as happens (except for the queen who will have hibernated somewhere for the winter) - we're hoping a new generation of wasps will come and live in the greenhouse this summer 🤞
11. No time to write a book - but we do plan to post further video updates about our garden including the greenhouse - so watch this space! 🌱😀
A couple of quick tips with very little cost:
Paint your back wall with a flat black paint. This will help absorb sunlight during the day and radiate heat back during the night acting like a solar thermal battery.
On the outside, build up the soil at the wall to within 15cm (to prevent moisture migration to water sensitive materials) of the wood construction. This will take advantage of the earth's natural tendency to stay around 10C throughout the winter. A form of earth thermal power source.
6 mill poly sheets under the roof and on the walls to create a thermal insulation air barrier.
A costlier addition:
install a series of culverts below the frost line behind the wall. use low CFM air circulating fan (solar powered) to exchange air from the below earth culverts and inside the greenhouse.
Thanks for your tips which do make good sense for some climates and situations. We're going to monitor growing and harvests for a couple of years before we make any modifications to the greenhouse as we feel what we have does suit our needs. We just want to enjoy our gardening for a little while now!
@@TheTenterhookTimes Enjoy your gardening as much as you can!
Wow! I'm still dreaming of my greenhouse and am "collecting" ideas from other people's plans - thank you for showing yours!
We did the same for ages before taking the plunge. It's great seeing what other people do - very inspirational - so we enjoy being able to share our ideas too 😃
You are amazing! Thank you!
Thanks for watching! 🙌
Lovely video, thank you
Thank you for watching! 👍
Lovely vibes, enjoyed watching it!
Thank you! 🙌
Love this !!!
Thanks! 😀
what a fab youtube video, superb balance of speed, detail and editing, well done both,,, and the greenhouse is awesome too!
Thank you! 😀 Really appreciate the video feedback! And glad you liked the greenhouse too! 👍
Thank you so much for taking us along the journey of the first year of your greenhouse. There is lots to learn here, and I will be applying it to my greenhouse build this year. 😊
Thanks - so pleased you found it useful! Good luck with your own greenhouse build! 👍
Wow! You did such a wonderful job documenting your beautiful greenhouse. The photography and the simple explanations were a delight to experience. We live in a similar climate, also on a hillside and you have me dreaming of the possibilities! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you! We thought from the start that it would be a great project to document, not just for ourselves but so that we could share what we had learnt with others who might be interested too. We have really appreciated learning from other greenhouse growers on TH-cam. Appreciate the comment and wish you all the best for turning your dreams into a reality! 😀
Thanks so much
🌱👍
Looks Great! I have a polycarbonate lean to against garden shed and want to enlarge just a bit and replace the polycarbonate panels with heat sink in floor.
I know about microclimates all too well as we were hit with frost a couple days ago and wiped out Many plants. Local weather never warned of frost.
Frost is such a pain, especially when it arrives unexpectedly! Wishing you all the best with your gardening endeavours 🌱😃
hello from knighton in mid wales.
Hi Knighton, hope the gardening is going good over there on the east of the county! 😁
I have only just found your channel and what a delight. You have done so well documenting the build of your greenhouse and the first year in production. What a lovely place to live and grow fruit and veg.
Ah, thank you! 😀 It certainly is the most wonderful place here! 💚
One of the best commentary I have ever heard on YT. It was a pleasure watching the entire video. It was a ton of work and can't wait to watch more!!
Hi Todd, thanks - it was a ton of work (though very enjoyable) and now we need to plan some more!! 😂 Glad you enjoyed it! 👍
How wonderful! You must be so pleased with it. You could definitely get more use out of it in December and January though. I grow lettuces, salad rocket, miners lettuce, celery and Asian greens in my polytunnel that gets no direct sun in December or January! You need to plant more plants in winter than you would need in spring or summer to make up for the slower growth, but I’m sure in that fabulous greenhouse you’d get bumper crops! I also sow some brassicas and in October and overwinter them in 6inch pots on the benches, I plant them in the beds in January and they’re ready by late May just before the tomatoes go in. You can sow Napoli carrots in late September in a deep container (i use a plastic stacker storage box with holes drilled in the bottom) and overwinter them in there too. They’ll be ready in April.
Hanging baskets in there would be great for lettuces in winter too.
Check out my go to channel for year round self sufficiency. Steve really knows his stuff. It’s only my second year and I was almost self sufficient in veg all year last year.
There’s loads of links in the description to his gardening ebook, monthly sowing and growing guides and individual growing guides. It’s all free to access too (though you can use the buy me a coffee icon to donate if you wish)
Check him out, he’s wonderful and so generous to pass on all his knowledge like he does.
youtube.com/@SteveRichards
Thanks for all your suggestions - it's great to hear about other people's experiences! 👍 We had definitely planned to grow more through the depths of winter but this year it hasn't been possible due to family caring responsibilities which we had to prioritise. We're taking note though and look forward to extending the growing season further in future 😀
It is so nice I love the greenhouse and y great job guys
Thank you! 🙌
Fantastic! Thx for the inspiration and for sharing your project ❤❤❤
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the comment 😍
This is my issue freezing nights in June and even late August!!
Exactly, can be a real issue! Where are you gardening?
I live in zone 5b, and have been wanting to grow figs in a windy rural area. This is wonderful; I was just given a pallet of bricks that I intend to use to do this along the front of my property line over an illegally placed sidewalk that shall now act as a pathway. My city was given 1 foot leeway into my yard for a sidewalk and they placed it ten feet into my yard when it was laid decades ago, so I'm claiming ownership. 😎😁 The kicker? They infringed on my property for the sake of a young tree... that destroyed part of the sidewalk. 😆
You need a big fan in there.
Indeed, we would like one. We need to do some more research!
Amazing
Thanks! 🙌
Wonderful, helpful video, thank you. Great idea with cutting the hoops for extended window openers👍 The birdsong hit the exact frequency where it turned the sound down and activated sub titles (a minor irritation). Thanks again for your efforts and time taken to edit and share this 👌👏
The recycled hoops are working brilliantly as extended window openers - love to recycle stuff where we can 👍
very neat and organized garden I've ever seen!
I really enjoyed watching. Thank you for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed the video - it was fun to capture the build and first harvest!
You two are geniuses. It's so well designed. A nice mix of practical and artful. So many ideas I want in my own greenhouse, someday.
Ah, thank you for such a lovely comment 😍
Thanks for sharing your greenhouse build and first growing season. I listened with earbuds & love the birdsong in my ears 😊
Ah, thanks for appreciating the bird song! We love our native birds 🐦☺
Loved ur greenhouse. I can’t work knowing the wasps were there. Very nice I’m jealous. Hi fm CA.
Hi Gloria, thanks - the wasps never came anywhere near us whilst we were working in the greenhouse - too busy with their own endeavours! Is CA Canada or California perhaps...? Thanks for watching 😀
Really interesting! Great job!
Thank you! 🙌
What a wonderful set up and what abundance! You must be very proud of your garden, it's absolutely beautiful
We do love gardening here - it's a very special place for us! 💚 Thank you for your lovely comment 😀
That was really interesting, a great set up you have there.
Thanks, glad you like it! 😀
This was a well put together video. My only complaint is that his voice was often drowned out by the bird song.
Also, the only wasp I've heard of that will kill aphids is the parasitic wasp which is only about 1/10 inch long, very tiny. I've heard people say that common wasps kill aphids, I just haven't seen anything from a University that says that.
Good work and I'm glad the new greenhouse got things all sorted out.
Thanks for the info about the wasps. We'll have to read up about that. Either way we like the wasps. They started two nests this year but unfortunately they didn't progress much at all before being abandoned, so we miss them. Hopefully they have a good nest somewhere else! 🤞
I like wasps. I let them be if the nests aren't close to the house. I have recently watched a video where a regular brown wasp was eating a tomato horn worm, so that's good news. I like the idea of IPM, but you have to get everything just right or you're losing crop which doesn't work for a small garden you're trying to feed yourself from. I've also never seen any IPM source discuss mosquitos and I am a magnet so I still have to spray the yard and use deet and BT bits.
Your channel just popped up and the way you've presented the video is brilliant, full of info and I've subscribed. Will look forward to watching your videos. Hello from across the water in Ireland 🤗
Hello Sinead - thanks for your lovely comment and welcome! 👍Glad you enjoyed the video! 😀
Well done!
Thank you! 🙂🙃
This is EXCELLENT! Watching from Jamaica 🇯🇲 😌 😍
Hi to you both! Wishing you happy gardening in Jamaica! 🌿🌱☺
What a lovely space. What a lovely video. Greetings from Kentucky US.
Greetings Kentucky friends! 😃 Glad you enjoyed the video & thanks for the comment 👍
great work!
Thank you! 🙌
Y’all are so amazing!
Thank you for taking us along in your journey
Hiya, thanks, yes the journey continues with growing season no 3 well underway already! 🍅🥒🥬🍇😃
Молодцы! Отличная теплица.
Beautifully filmed. Very informative. Keep growing and posting. Thanks.
Thank you! Definitely planning to keep growing and posting - we'll feature some other areas of our garden too 👍🌱🌼🌿
Excellent summary! My solar greenhouse in North Carolina is doing fantastically as well
Hi David, thanks for watching in North Carolina and later on we'll be over to check on your solar greenhouse! We love seeing how others grow their own fruit and veg 😀
Beautiful - Thanks for sharing!
Happy to share - thanks for watching! 😀
Fantastic greenhouse design and highly useful video production!!
Thank you so much! We're really enjoying our greenhouse and sharing our experiences to a wider audience 😊
An idea: You could paint the back wall white so more light is reflected onto the plants! I don't think it will affect the temperature storage capacity as heat is taken up again through the room temperature. Now that the 2nd season is almost done, are there things you would do differently if you built such an amazing greenhouse again? Thanks for the great video :)
I've seen people line a wall with jugs of water designed to absorb heat... and they paint them black.
What a beautiful and satisfying video. It looks like all your design plans worked out perfectly.
Thank you, yes, we're very pleased and enjoying sowing our seed this Spring 2023! 🌱😀
Beautiful 🤩
Thank you! 😊
Thank you for sharing the trip, it was very inspiring, will build a similar one during the summer, towards the long side of the barn😃
Hi Fred, thanks, glad you found it inspiring and we wish you all the best with your project 👍
Wonderful 👍Thanks for sharing 🌹
Thanks for watching and commenting 👍
If you paint the backwall black it will collect and hold more warmth.
Hi Erwin, we may do this at some point in the future, it certainly is a good suggestion and I've seen it mentioned elsewhere (including on this Comments page) so we'll see. For now we're just enjoying the gardening!
Thank you for this fantastic video, one of the best vids on passive solar greenhouse design and performance I've seen in years. We are building a smaller version, very similar to yours in design. Love your ingenuity. Cheers from your friends in Canada. 🥰
Hello Canadian friends - we watched a lot of videos about Canadian greenhouses when we were doing our research. There are some amazing greenhouses there! Wishing you all the best with your greenhouse project! 👍😀
Really enjoyable, glad you kept the Wasps, I know they eat pests, good little helpers. Did a quick search, they are estimated to eat 14million kilograms a year in UK. Just hope it's not one large caterpillar. Cheers Mick
Hi Mick, that's an amazing statistic you've found out about how much wasps can eat in a year!! All the more reason to welcome them into our gardens. Thanks for a brilliant comment! 😁👍
Absolutely loved watching the process of your greenhouse and how abundant they can be 🥰 x
Ah what a lovely comment! Thank you so much 😊
Excellent Job!
Thanks! 🙌
Fantastic! So glad you showed up in my youtube feed! Wonderful garden, so inspiring. 😊
Ah thank you 😀 Really appreciate your comments on our videos! 👍
I really like your new greenhouse. The only thing about it that surprised me was that you stuck with the poly-tunnel for so long.
I've two suggestions you might want to try. 1) Paint the interior of your back wall flat black to increase solar absorption during the winter. 2) Add insulation to the outside of the back wall to break the thermal bridging of the concrete that pulls heat out of the greenhouse during the winter. Still, I think you did a great job with what you've already done. I'm a bit envious.
Hi thanks for your great comments and suggestions. The polytunnel served us well over the years but we're very pleased to have the greenhouse now 👍
I love your straightforward, down to earth approach! This makes me more confident I too can build a passive greenhouse! So many channels make this such a complicated, scientific endeavour that it becomes quite frightening and overwhelming!
I’ll just come back here for a bit of ‘ahhh, that’s better!’ 😂
Ah, that's lovely, thank you! We too find some of the channels a bit overwhelming - we wanted to just keep it simple and see if it worked for us, which it has pretty much so far! We're having fun anyway on our greenhouse journey! 😄
Beautifully done
Goodness me this is an AMAZING build!!!! 😍👍👍👍
Well thank you - we are very pleased with the result - can't keep out of the place especially as Spring has sprung! 😀
wow! what a garden of Eden! :)
So awesome, I couldn't be more jealous 👍
Great work !
Thanks for watching and commenting! 😀
Painting the wall black helps absorb heat from the sun. Digging a trench to lower the greenhouse to about 6 feet below ground level will help insulate against temperature fluctuation!
Love your green house, your vegetables an your video. Awesome storytelling, filming and edit ❤
Thank you for such a lovely comment! 😍
That's an impressive upgrade. Did you know pinching every second cucumber flower extends the productive life of the plant? You could start a compost heap outside at the back and pipe in the heat, or just leave it keeping the back wall warmer than otherwise.
What a lovely video I’ve just watched, very successful, can I ask, what variety of fig tree you grow and how do they taste? thinking of getting one for my new greenhouse this year🤷♂️
Hi Stephen, the fig is a Brown Turkey and the ripe fruits are absolutely delicious, incredibly sweet and juicy. They do particularly well during a really hot summer. Hope you find one for your greenhouse too 🤞👍
Love your design!
Thanks - it's working well so far! 👍
Wonderful account of your endeavours and success. Well done!
Thanks Richard, Jackie deserves most of the credit!
Ah, thank you! It's been a team effort in fact!! Appreciate the comment 😀
Super effort!
Thank you! 🙌
Great stuff guys. I am a little further down the river, and am also in a bit of a frost pocket. I have a central path in my greenhouse with supports for tomatoes on either side. I ha e overwinter stuff on the path this year by wrapping fleece around the supports and putting bubble wrap over the top..
Living by the river is wonderful and we wouldn't swop for anything, but frost pockets can be a real pain for growing! Good luck with your greenhouse - we use a lot of fleece too, inside our old polytunnel regularly and outside too.
you did a good job!
Thanks! 😀
Love this. Our polytunnel collapsed this winter in Romania after a snow period, it was already damaged from high winds but this killed it completely. We aren't at the property all the time as the main house isn't complete, we have a cabin in the forest which we use a few times a month. It's time for an upgrade. Came here just looking for design ideas, what you guys have done is great as well as being practical it looks brill. We wont go anywhere as big, 3 x 5.5 mtrs, thanks for many tips!
Hi Cheryl - polytunnels and snow definitely don't mix well! It doesn't snow here that often but when it did in the past we were always rushing out to clear the polytunnel - in fact one of the first ever videos on our channel shows us doing just that!! 😂 Glad you picked up a few tips - we learnt loads from watching other people's greenhouse videos on here. All the best with your future gardening endeavours 👍
I don’t have a garden but I LOVED watching this endeavor
Hi Carol, ah thank you! 💚
This is wonderful. Not sure if there is an accounting anywhere; the financial investment is often steep but a well done building such as this likely adds value upon resale, beauty, and of course endless supplies of the freshest veges. I’m smitten with the frog/toad. ❤️
Hi Barbara, thanks for your comment - it is an investment of time and money of course - but well worth it from our point of view! Glad you liked our frog! 🐸🥰
You could source a lot of the materials second hand. You just need to be creative.
I think a solar powered fan would help with the ventilation. Also having a way of letting in the ladybugs for your greenfly and other pollinators would be a good option.
Beautiful green house. I just saw a video about the Chinese green houses that stay warm all year round and can grow food in the middle of the winter.
We watched videos about the Chinese green houses too - they're absolutely amazing and made us realise that we could try a new approach to a traditional greenhouse in our own garden to help extend the season here. Thanks for the comment 😃
Great video! Thank you!
Thank you! 😀
Amazing video and project!
Thanks for not attacking the wasps ❤
Thanks! 😀 We were intrigued by the wasps. I want to try and find out more about them. They have made nests in our garden sheds before but nothing as massive as this nest!
Well done to the both of you 😊 Your temperature moderation is very impressive indeed 👍
I must add; if you paint the back wall black it will much improve it’s performance as a heat sink.
Thank-you! It's pretty hot in there already at this time of year but I suppose a black wall would improve heat retention during cooler months. We shall have to think about it! 👍
@@TheTenterhookTimesI wonder if you could use black paint & hang a white cover of some sort in the hotter months? (Perhaps just cheap drop cloths?)
@@TheTenterhookTimes Along with painting the wall black you might add dirt behind the wall the wall's upper portion so the heat has somewhere to go other than inside during the hottest part of the day. Then at night - when it cools down - the heat stored in the earth will seep back into the space keeping it warmer at night and at the beginning and end of the season.
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for watching & commenting! 😀
You can further improve the greenhouse by thermaly insulating the outside of the blockwall. Even a white thermally insulating paint woul make good improvement.
Very nice!!!! i am in process of a similar project here in the US. Watching the plants grow in your house gave me the idea of a trellis along my block wall. I think I will insert some metal brackets as I am building for it to attach to. Look forward to seeing how this year goes for you!!!
Thanks, really great that you took an idea to try in your own greenhouse. This year our young vine is growing very fast up the block wall at the back so soon it will be covered in foliage (and one day hopefully grapes too!) 🤞
A great use for the old polytunnel frame is to screen in the entire thing for protected outdoor growing. We live where summer rains are often an unpredictable, so have a poly roof with screened sides so we could control watering. We also set the frame on 4 foot high pony walls to raise the tradionally low ceiling. We also pull a large shade cloth over it during the hottest summer months, creating a huge temp drop when you enter. Lastly, raised beds inside have made gardening a joy. We haven't seen a caterpillar for 5 years!
Thanks for the suggestion 👍
Pro tip: you can rise temperature by piling compost against the wall
Very interesting, thank you an good luck to you both. Michael
Glad you enjoyed our greenhouse video 👍
Brilliant, well done on all your hard work 💚
Ah thank you - it's been a bit of a project but we've really enjoyed it! 😀
I just love this! looks amazing! it would be so cool to have a heated greenhouse! my greenhouse had frost on the inside this morning! LOL
Our greenhouse is heated only by the sun! ☀All the best for your allotment gardening - we love allotments! 👍
Wow. That’s fantastic. Great job.
Thank you! 🙌
You basically built a tiny house designed like a lounge soaking up the sun but with more light coming in compared to an average home.
But yeah with a ton of money great. I think u have done the right thing. Looks so cold and surprised you were actually growing stuff. Summers prob are 6 weeks there because by the time it heats up the days start to shorten rapidly . Heat is what you need given your climate. Thanks for sharing.
Paint the north wall black , a flat black.
You may get as much as 10*F out of it.
And if you want to grow in the winter, add a insulating Sutter to close off South wall.and the west side.
I hope you already insulated outside of the north wall to hold more heat.
If not you might want to think about adding it.
You have a beautiful greenhouse, thank you for sharing.
Hi John, thanks for watching and for your suggestions 👍 For now we will continue growing, harvesting, monitoring and then see if we need to refine our design 😀
Innovative gardening....phenomenal stages and wonderful progress!
Thank you! 😀
Thank you! 😀