Very small greenhouse.

[Gypscoprotheres]

At the moment I live in an apartment and next to our 'computer/reading-room' we have another room that I use for my cacti at the moment (next to the living room ). Everything is growing well and I take care that they get as much sun as possible (in another topic I've already written that I even transport plants from the living room to our bedroom for them to get twice as much sun!).

To make a long story short; within a year or 2 we're planning to have children and you probably already guess my next dilemma.... That spare room won't be used for cacti anymore. Hmfff...

We have 2 balconies and one of them catches more sun than the other, but is also the smaller one. While surfing the internet I've found a 'balcony-greenhouse' :


And I'm thinking about starting with one of them, using the following:

A heating cable.

I think that if I take care of a good ventilation, this little 'greenhouse' might keep my cacti safe during the winter.

I hope to have a garden in the future where I can build my own REAL greenhouse, but for right now, this might be a nice temporary solution.

Any advise is welcome. =) I just want to keep my cacti!

[majcka]

I think the bubble foil (the kind TV or such is raped in) could help too.

[SnowFella]

Probably would, I've got 2 of those balcony greenhouses and I doubt they keep much heat in through cold days/nights. Guess I'd have to test it to really find out but I suspect the plastic just is to thin to give any real insulation.
If I remember tomorrow I'll test to see if how it fares, got one of those 2 sensor wireless thermometers. Just put one in the greenhouse tomorrow morning and leave the other ones outside, if there's much of a difference I ought to be able to see from the max/min readings.

[Gypscoprotheres]

Do you also use a heating-cable?

Thanks for wanting to test this, by the way!

Isolation/bubble-foil would probably help a lot. Thanks for the tip!

[daiv]

I think the bigger problem with small greenhouses is to make sure you don't cook the plants. The small volume of air will heat almost instantly once the sun hits it. So if you have a cool night, followed by a hot day you will just want to make sure that you don't forget to open it back up again.

[Gypscoprotheres]

Ok. That is something I'll have to take care of. 'Luckily', we don't have many hot days here in Holland, but if we do have, it's also annoyingly hot during the night. So I guess that when we have a hot week like that (once or twice a year), I'll just leave it open. But thanks for the advice. It's another thing to take care of.

[SnowFella]

I'm not running any kind of heating in mine, it doesn't really get cold enough to need it here with the lowest recorded temperature in my area being a balmy -1.6degrees.
Got the 2 thermometers outside right now to equalise before I put one into the greenhouse. Expecting a reasonably warm day (16-17 degrees) and another cold night (near freezing temps) will be interesting to see what kinda difference the greenhouse will make!

Ok, equalised at around 11degrees. Max/min memory has been zeroed and one of the sensors are now in the greenhouse. I'll keep it in there untill I come home from work tomorrow afternoon and we ought to be able to see if it makes any kind of difference.

[daiv]

Cool! I look forward to hearing the results. It inspires me to try that in my own greenhouse. I should see if I can find a dual sensor, battery powered thermometer with hi/low memory.

[SnowFella]

Starting to get kinda doubtful over the "experiment". With my greenhouse only getting limited sun, mostly during early morning, and with me having opened it right as it was getting the most sunlight the overday temperatures between inside and outside only differed by 2 degrees and have already started dropping.
There's still however a 2 degree difference between inside and outside and I'll check later on to see how long it stays that way. Have a feeling it will have evened out later on tonight.

Might try it again later on in the week with the empty greenhouse placed to catch more direct sunlight, just got to figure out how to shield the sensor from direct sunlight.

Edt: near 2 hours later now and I'm starting to see the insulating properties of the greenhouse as the outside temperature drops, it's dropping alot faster outside than what it is inside...not really rocket science but still suprised that the thin plastic is making as much of a difference. There's now a near 4 degree difference between inside and outside.

[Gypscoprotheres]

Interesting! Thank you for doing this experience. I wonder what this thing will do when it freezes -15 degrees Celsius. (with the heating cable of course)

[majcka]

Interesting! Thank you for doing this experience. I wonder what this thing will do when it freezes -15 degrees Celsius. (with the heating cable of course)

I believe the heating cable will get wet. If I compare this with stairs where I have a heating cable built in and stairs get wet while there was -12C outside. i believe that works around 0C and not so good further below?!

[SnowFella]

As it stands right now it doesn't bode well for the greenhouse, even with it backing onto a brick wall that's according to my IR tempgun now is a nearly 8 degrees warmer than the ambient air the inside temps are falling quickly alongside with the outside air temperatures.
9pm right now and I'm seeing 7.5 degrees ambient, 9.5 inside the greenhouse and the brick wall it's backing onto is at 15 degrees.
I'm thinking the greenhouse's plastic just is too thin to keep the heat in and the volume of air inside it is just to small to hold the temperature, might of been a difference if it was clad in bubble wrap.

Kinda makes me worried as I've got 1 year old Melocactii seedlings inside that greenhouse and with the temps diving down as low as I'm seeing right now they have to be getting close to near ambient temperatures overnight. Hopefully the fact that they are in a separate seedling chamber inside the greenhouse means they stay at survivable temperatures!

[majcka]

To make a long story short; within a year or 2 we're planning to have children and you probably already guess my next dilemma.... That spare room won't be used for cacti anymore. Hmfff...

We have 2 balconies and one of them catches more sun than the other, but is also the smaller one. While surfing the internet I've found a 'balcony-greenhouse' :


And I'm thinking about starting with one of them, using the following:

A heating cable.

I think that if I take care of a good ventilation, this little 'greenhouse' might keep my cacti safe during the winter.

I hope to have a garden in the future where I can build my own REAL greenhouse, but for right now, this might be a nice temporary solution.

Any advise is welcome. =) I just want to keep my cacti!

If we go to your primary problem, there is a simple solution. Sell the apartment and buy a house (why invest into a small GH with folia?) With nice piece of land around the house you will get enough place to built the real GH.
You have two years of time as you said. (That's cheep of me isn't it?)

If that is not possible you can allways close the balcony. That's what people here do when they get out of space. Is that allowed where you live?

[SnowFella]

To my supprise there was still a difference when I took off for work at 4:30 this morning. 3.2 degrees outside and 5.0 inside. Guess it does make alittle bit of a difference.

[Gypscoprotheres]

If we go to your primary problem, there is a simple solution. Sell the apartment and buy a house (why invest into a small GH with folia?) With nice piece of land around the house you will get enough place to built the real GH.
You have two years of time as you said. (That's cheep of me isn't it?)

If that is not possible you can allways close the balcony. That's what people here do when they get out of space. Is that allowed where you live?

Hahaha Yeah.. I wish it was possible to buy a house with a piece of land. But at the moment I can't afford it yet and selling my apartment will make the building-owner kind of angry I guess. (I rent)

@SnowFella: Nice!