Hi, Merran,
Why not raise your plants outdoors? If some short of protection
against herbivory is needed, or if you must keep pollinators away, or if you
want to prevent seeds from escaping, you could try fabric row covers. The
product is made by various companies Googling:
+"row covers" +floating +polyester
will get you plenty of hits for suppliers and other info. This polyester
fabric looks like the landscaping fabric that is used to suppress weeds, but
it is white instead of black and lets plenty of light through. It is used
by gardeners as a season extender and for other purposes. You can make
hoops to arch over your plants from heavy wire or half-inch PVC pipe, place
the fabric over the hoops, and weigh the edges with boards, soil, rocks,
bricks, etc. The fabric is so light that many people use it as "floating"
row covers. That is, they use no hoops, but just let the plants themselves
support the fabric, raising it as they grow. The fabric can be easily
lifted for watering (but rain goes right through it), weeding, or other
access, or you can make the tunnels big enough to crawl or walk into.
Depending on the need for isolation, you can keep the ends of the tunnels
open for ventilation.
Hope this helps.
Martin Meiss
2010/7/1 Merran <[email protected]>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm a first-time poster with a need for advice. I am working in the Utah
> Rockies this summer doing revegetation and have been placed in charge of a
> small greenhouse. It's 16x10 feet and all glass. The story is that this
> greenhouse was slapped together by last summer's plant technician and still
> has some bugs, the largest one being that it overheats way too quickly. We
> have a misting fan (a floor fan with four nozzles and a rotating head) as
> our cooling system, but it doesn't keep the temp below 80 F and even worse,
> it completely soaks the foliage. The plants are dripping wet all day long
> and I'm starting to see damage such as rotting leaves. If I turn the water
> off and just use the fan the temp begins to skyrocket.
>
> Here is our setup: we have four ceiling vents, an exhaust fan at one end
> and two floor vents (louvers) at the opposite end. The louvers are at
> ground level. The misting fan is at table height and stationed in front of
> the louvers. Aside from the ceiling vents, everything comes on at once and
> turns off at once. In other words, the louvers aren't open until the
> misting fan comes on, etc. When using the misting fan, I close the ceiling
> vents. I do have shade cloth up but it's inside the greenhouse -- I could
> put it on the outside, but unless that's going to significantly lower the
> temp it would be a hassle because there is no current way to anchor it. I
> wanted to take off the glass panels on the roof and have it be an open-air
> greenhouse for the summer, but apparently the structure is too flimsy to
> hold without the glass in place.
>
> We are at 5500 ft elev and temperatures have been in the 70's and 80's, but
> it will be mid 90's in August. The plants that I am raising are used to
> dry, sunny foothills and mountain brush communities and I would like to
> raise them to be somewhat drought tolerant. I'm at my wits end and would
> appreciate any suggestions!
>
> Thank you,
> Merran Owen
> Biological Science Tech
> Timpanogos Cave National Monument
>
