ISECCo Home | Sponsors | Meeting Notice | Site Map |
In the early 1990's we wanted to experiment with growing corn and squashes. Our Alaskan summers are not conductive to growing these crops, for they are too short and a little too cool (especially in August). So to help provide a little extra heat and a more controlled environment we put up a 5 meter by 15 meter (15 foot by 50 foot) structure. I have build greenhouses like this before, and our technique was very simple: poles of varying lengths at the ends with light rope between the tops of the poles. Over the ropes we put a clear plastic sheeting. This results in a Quonset hut shaped structure (half cylinder). Since we put this up over a fairly high quality dirt, we could plant our pre-plants right in the soil.
Our success with this structure was limited, due partly to the location: although there was a pond, there was no way to pump the water from the pond. This made it difficult to provide enough water. It also turned out to be a very warm summer, and inside the poorly ventilated (we had no power either, so we couldn't run fans) greenhouse the temperature often got up to 45° C (110° F). Although this did not kill our crops the daily temperature swings (frequently down to 10° C at night) did enough damage that productivity was very limited.
Due to these problems we discontinued this greenhouse after the first summer.