Green House Growing in Canada

Unless you're in the Green House business, its is not worth the cost of heating. I start all my plants indoors and put them out sometime toward the end of may when the frost and below zero days are completely gone. It takes just one night of sub zero by a few degrees and you've lost most plants in your green house. Two years ago i lost plants from the cold during the first few days of june.

I had a green house business, use oil to heat, put me out of business. I move my GH and now grow right on the ground in side GH. No heat other than sun and soil absorbing heat. If you get a double poly GH, it keeps in heat a little better. If you have big water barrels full with water, it also stores the heat. Now tinder plants such as peppers need the warmth, but any cool crops, brassicaceae family, onions etc can do great, there is a time in winter when the sun is just not enough and the plants stop growing, but as soon as the winter solstice passes away they grow. Put the hot loving plants in GH after any danger of to cold, and they will go nuts in the heat, just make sure you have lots of water for them.

I don't heat the greenhouse to keep everything though winter but I do grow and harvest thoughout winter by using both a cold hoop house, with is basicly a greenhouse over cold frames, and I also use the old fashioned english trick of creating hot manure mini- greenhouse's, the hot manure greenhouse when done right and if you have a small mixed farm is a amazing way to get a couple months jump on things for your kitchen use.

A couple months jump? In Edmonton you are lucky to have four good months in the GH, no jumps at all.

That is why i move away from Edmonton. and you can't see the Rockies from there ether. Try growing a garden in Golden or field B.b. elk go walking through.

Farmgal, the creating hot manure beds works great. Just hard to get the manure hot off the ass, so to speak.

No winter this year so I planted lettuce and spinach in early Feb right and foreground. This pic was mid March I think. Back left is collard greens, beside that is a cabbage stump replanted here. Cut an X in the stalk and a little head grows from each corner.
Onion root left front is a replanted root end. Rocks get some heat from the sun.
This setup worked pretty well, I'll be improving it next year.
I have another frame covering another collard, a broccoli and a few beets (I hear the greens are the best second season).

Looks good, nice and big.

You can always scale it up by making it longer. The important thing is to cover the glass on cold nights, this is where all your heat is lost. If the space is too large to cover you have to add supplemental heat.
This covers a raised bed but you're better off at ground level(the raised bed is over a tree stump- too hard to dig out)
Stay small and close to the ground, heap snow around to insulate the sides in colder places and the ground won't freeze inside the frames. Store what heat you can get with thermal mass. A wall of dry stacked clay brick against the back wall does a great job. The other frame has a row of 2l pop bottles buried 1/3 deep into the soil.

This is a pic from today. April 2nd (3 weeks later) and we're starting to harvest lettuce, note the cabbage already got too hot and one stalk is starting to bolt.

Impressive Perfesser!

Perfesser is that Dandelion that I see there, I haven't had that in a long while. A nice salad of young leaves, chives and some sweet red pepper in a sour cream sauce and a touch of black ground pepper. Damn I'm hunger now. Oh yeah, boiled dandelion as spinach, dandelion wine from the buds (hic) and roasted roots for a coffee substitute. Their weed, my salad. Bon appetite!

That was a package of what they called "winter lettuce". It would be a mix of leafy cabbages and kales, mustard, maybe some chard. (probably no better or worse than dandelions) and a couple of seed strips of spinach. Don't let them get too big and they're OK.
Dandelion flowers are quite nice just when they're half open.

So this is a 4 b y 4 raised hot manure cold frame box, hubby built it so that I can put layers of tops on at different heights, so its warm under the plants, then you put the cold frame on top, or you can lift it off in good weather, and it has a wire frame that goes on top to keep the chickens out.. the plants are about 3 inches high in the rows, got some nice mixed salad greens on the left, soft red leaf lettice in the middle, and then corn salad on the right, spinach next to it yet. all bedded down with straw.

Farmgal can you post that pic, pulled back some what, I'm not sure how all that's working.

I made a lazy mans cold frame by digging a shallow pit. Slop side high on the north , low on the south, sticks at the back to hold old storm window open when working. and placed were the green house blocks the wind. I plant parsley, cabbage lettuces and spinach in there, will up date pick as things grow. All trans plant the cabbage when they get bigger. I should add, i have very sandy soil, so it warms up fast in spring, its the watering i have to keep up on.

Hi Beth

Will do, I have had a few folks on the blog ask how I do the composting heated raised beds as well, and as luck would have it, I have plans for this weekend to do a new one, so I can take photos from start to finish and also get you some new ones of the bed shown above, its not much to look at with the lid on but sure..

So in keeping with the info you are giving, I have River loam soil and I modify it heavily with farm compost and I will grow and turn in green covers, I will attach a photo of my typical garden soil for you to see cuz is helpful to see yours. Its in the main garden area ( I have a couple different garden areas) and its just got typical eastern view, a building somewhat to the south but there is what we can the little barn a far amount in front it, then yardway, then fence, and start of main garden but the Little barn which is not so little just compared to the big barn, acts like a block on wind to a point, its a break point.

Ok, as I am a close up queen, I have attached a close up for you but as you asked to see more, I also attached a more overview photo as well, these were taken spring gardening in 2010 in the nursery garden area, it has ring of tree's around it, that might seem a bit odd, but I get lots of sun in the spring for a good start and its my "cool" garden, as the tree's once they leaf out, help me grow and keep more cooler weather plants in that one, vs my hot! main summer garden, I have a cool share hugelculture bed and a hot hugelculture bed, and they are planted different as well..

FG