Indoor/Outdoor Greenhouse?
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September 9, 2010
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September 9, 2010
chuck j asked:
We live in Michigan and we are tired of buying vegetables from the grocery store or market. Every summer we have a nice size garden but we really want one now, in the winter. I can’t put up a small hobby greenhouse outside can I, without temp control and some sort of bed for the plants to grow? Duh, I know about the dirt, but it would need some sort of temp control inside and grow lights I’m guessing as well, right? Even if I wanted to do it inside, same thing right? This isn’t for pot or marijuana either, I’m talking about tomatoes, peppers, and such.. I don’t want an areogarden either, I want a nice size greenhouse, but I’m thinking it can’t be done.
3 Comments
In this climate (zone 5), at best you can have a 3 season garden/hoop house/high tunnel. This is a plastic covered structure created with metal ‘hoops’. Generally, it is unheated and plants are grown directly in the ground. Come warm weather, you remove the plastic and garden as you normally would. Its not likely you would have success with tomatoes or peppers because of their need for hot weather, but you can start them early and get ripe ones at least a month before those planted in the ground. What you can grow are peas, beans, broccoli, brussel sprouts, spinach, lettuce, kale, carrots, beets, onions, garlic, leeks anything that likes some cool temps. If you want fresh tomatoes through the winter months, look for a variety called ‘long keeper’ or others of that type. You pick them late in the season when they are green, wrap them in paper about 1 inch apart (for air circulation) and bring them indoors to store. They slowly ripen over 6 weeks and stay ‘garden fresh’ for 8 to 12 weeks. You will be able to eat fresh, homegrown tomatoes in January.
To learn more about high tunnel gardening, look into books by Eliot Coleman,
or visit and to learn more
You might be able to do it. You would have to site it properly and make sure it’s all glass or plexiglass on the south and west sides. You can get heat in the greenhouse with a couple of 55 gallon drums painted black and many 1 gallon jugs painted black also and filled with water. You would place the drums in the south and west facing windows so they can absorb the sun’s energy. They will get warm and this warmth is dispersed through the night. The gallon jugs will get cold faster, but the 55 gallon drums should keep the greenhouse around 40F through the night. You can also get some rabbits in your greenhouse. The heat they generate is enough to keep a greenhouse warm.
How often does the sun shine there? I live in zone 5, Bend, Oregon, but 20 miles away in La Pine, Oregon, where the elevation is 4000 ft higher, there is a couple that grow all year long in protected hoops. It has worked for them, but you have to be diligent in this process. Home grown is the best way to go with vegetables, and grocery stores are so over-priced and tomatoes never fresh.