High Tunnel/Greenhouse ~ Natural Heat Source Ideas?

[ChickenLady2014]

Hi everyone, I'm curious if there are other gardeners that use a high tunnel/greenhouse to extend their growing seasons. I live in Northern Michigan and our normal growing season is June- September/October. If you are growing pumpkins, squash, cabbage, potatoes or brussel sprouts those could still be growing in the garden after September. Tomatoes & peppers do not continue to grow well after September unless they are planted in a greenhouse/high tunnel. We are currently going into our 3rd growing season with ours.

Fortunately I have a very talented hubby. He made ours without prints or from a kit. He knew what he wanted, so he sketched up some plans & started building.
Here is a picture of my tomato seedlings & larger tomato plants. Mind you, there was only a 2 week window between when I planted the first seeds & the 2nd batch of seeds. I started them in my house, but Mother Nature decided to hit us with an artic blast & 20 inches of snow in April. The 2nd seedlings just stopped growing. They didn't die, they just went dormant or something. They are finally starting to grow again.

This is our greenhouse as of yesterday (April 30th 2018) Moved my tomato plants that I started in my house into the green house. The remaining space will be used for different varieties of peppers.

 

[ChickenLady2014]

I have a question for anyone that might have a natural heat source idea that hubby & I could use in the future that would give us an even bigger jump on our growing season? I would love to start my seeds out in the greenhouse, but it was still getting too cold at night up until this week. Thanks for any help & suggestions.

 

[LittleMissCountry]

We just bought a small greenhouse kit this year, in February. We moved to Virginia in August last year, and I was really wanting to start growing earlier than the season started. I already have a tomato plant that is almost 3 feet tall, and several smaller ones. I had more seedlings but they died in an unexpected freeze. I started potatoes, peas, and lettuce in March and they are doing great and are outside now. The tomatos are almost ready to go outside. I think this week is the turning point for the temperature.
I am also curious about natural heating. We ended up having to move our greenhouse right up behind the house due to someone on our road complaining to the HOA, so we just plugged in an extension cord and used a heater.

 

[ChickenLady2014]

Hi LittleMissCounty, I'm sorry you had troubles with you HOA over a greenhouse. I could never live in a HOA neighborhood. I'm not a messy person or anything, I just would be furious to have to pay an ASSociation good money to be told what I can or can't do on my propery. Glad you were able to move it up by the house & haven't had to take it down. I live in the north where we get frost right up to the first week of June. Our greenhouse is quiet large so one heater wouldn't help much. My tomato plants were a foot high when I planted them yesterday. Not bad for starting them off in the house. I had to do some pretty creative moving & turning if them often to keep them in the light & growing straight. From the time they started to get their true leaves I've run a fan on them. This forces them to grow a sturdier stem. Good luck on your garden goodies.

 

[LittleMissCountry]

Yeah, I am not crazy about the HOA either, but when we moved and looked at houses, there wasn't much available and the only decent ones all had HOAs. We moved from Colorado, and our growing season there was really short as well, so I was excited to move to an area where I can actually grow tomatoes. Even with starting them inside, where we lived in Colorado, they would never ripen before the season was over.

 

[Marmalade25]

Hi folks, I do not have a greenhouse, but I do have a short growing season and did some research on winter gardening this past winter. I saw an amazing video from someone in Canada who heated her greenhouse with a compost heap. Sort of like a hot bed concept using fresh manure breaking down to create heat. She was growing tomatoes year round in it if I remember correctly. She even put slaughtered animals from her farm in to really kick up the heat. Outside she used compost bins built from pallets, or something similar, and then grew directly in the compost. The heat generated fromf the compost kept the plants warmer than in the ground. She was in an area that most people could not grow tomatoes outside any time of year. I can try and do a search and see if I can find it again.

 

[Marmalade25]

Although, I am sure if you look it up you will find plenty of resources. Good luck!

 

[Zinjifrah]

Yes, look into Manure Heaters. They've been used for centuries to heat greenhouses... I'm thinking for something like that, maybe convert black barrels inside into compost-barrel manure heaters? They provide heat, and once they're done 'cooking', they provide good compost right where you want it! Then load it back up and start over.

 

[ChickenLady2014]

Hi folks, I do not have a greenhouse, but I do have a short growing season and did some research on winter gardening this past winter. I saw an amazing video from someone in Canada who heated her greenhouse with a compost heap. Sort of like a hot bed concept using fresh manure breaking down to create heat. She was growing tomatoes year round in it if I remember correctly. She even put slaughtered animals from her farm in to really kick up the heat. Outside she used compost bins built from pallets, or something similar, and then grew directly in the compost. The heat generated fromf the compost kept the plants warmer than in the ground. She was in an area that most people could not grow tomatoes outside any time of year. I can try and do a search and see if I can find it again.

Im going to try that this fall. I moved piles of worked compost in this spring hoping there was still some heat left to it, but there wasn't & I didn't want to add any hot manure to it incase it didn't break down fast enough. It is planted now for the season, but I'm definitely going to move my large compost pile into it this fall & see what happens. Thanks for sharing the info.

 

[ChickenLady2014]

Yes, look into Manure Heaters. They've been used for centuries to heat greenhouses... I'm thinking for something like that, maybe convert black barrels inside into compost-barrel manure heaters? They provide heat, and once they're done 'cooking', they provide good compost right where you want it! Then load it back up and start over.

Thanks, I will have to look for information on that.