To summerise the first summer with V1.0: i made the extreme weather even more extreme!

but all of my plants survived the harsch treatment.

On sunny days the temperature would rise above 40°C beause i didnt had automatic airration.

First i tried leaving the top of the greenhouse open during the day (when i was at work).

The strong wind closed the lid a couple of times: every time my tobacco plant grew out of the greenhouse, the wind would slam the lid down and give the plant a beating :D

Later i put a brick in the top, to make it heavy enouth to stay open during strong winds.

That day i came home and saw the lid closed and the brick ontop of my tobacco plant.

i didnt solve the problem, the plant was just getting beaten even more XD

BUT STILL: the plants were growing happy and strong.

in this picture you can see the tobacco plant Flowering. Looking pretty....for a poisonous Plant. hehe

here you see my "yield".

i tryed drying the leafs and smoking them. tasted not good. really not good.

My guess is the drying or fermenting was a faillure because of low temperatures and high humidity. it took weeks to dry.

at the end of the Summer i put some of the plants in pots and disassembled the greenhouse.

I tryed a new design for the walls. Double Layer Fiberglas to trap air inside, which is used for Thermal insulation.

The PVC pipe adds streangth to the structure and can be used to hide wires or to let water flow through, for Temperature control.

The Structure consists of 3 U-shaped PVC Pipes and two Layers of FiberGlas.

(Sidenote: i build this entire greenhouse in my living room and my design allowed me to get the 70cm greenhouse through a 50cm Door :D i had flexebility in mind)

With Temperatures going down daily, i decided to use a 3-Layer Poly plate. It blocked UV light, but only in one direction. So i flipped the thing and didnt used that Feature.

Some cutouts were made and the Structure keeps getting stiffer. With the PVC pipes going over the Top-Plate, the wind cant lift the top.

Because my first greenhouse was standing on Soil (more likely IN), i used a reinforced plastic sheet to protect the balcony from water and dirt.

Going with the Insulation Theme, i layed a sheet of Styrofoam on the ground. My Buckets would go ontop of that.

Three big black containers were insulated with a minimum of 5cm thick Rockwool. Between the containers is also Rockwool stuffed.

Here you can See the final Growing medium: about 3-5 cm clay correls on the bottom, then Growing soil with perlite and Fertilizer premixed.

The PVC pipe in the corner helps me to detect water on the bottom of the container. Great tool to prevent root rotting.

Later i upgradet the front with a piece of Wood, to loose some wiggle. I also burried a Temperature probe.

A Week later i did the Last upgrade of V2.0- LED's !! yeah, long life the LED! all hail the LED!

I bought a 5 Watt Solar panel and connected it with a 10 Ampere solar charger from china to a 7 AmpereHour battery.

This 12Volt Battery is inside the grey, insulated Box and powers the 10 Watt Blue LED.

Why blue? it is one of the most efficient wavelenghts to energize the plants leafs. i will get deeper into Light Sience and Plant Growing in a future post.

I installed 2 Sockets for E27 Light bulbs. I used two 18 Watt Compact Fluorescend Light Bulbs to generate heat. Small power were choosen, because there were no climate control and good insulation. A small heat source would be enouth.

As you can see in the picture above, it was Bright as F*** and my greenhouse was allready covered in snow. I decided to turn the light complete off and trust in my design.

After 3 days with temperatures below -20°C my Soil Temperature was still above 3°. The top of the Plants did get some Frost, but the roots never froze.

With low Temperatures and little light, the peas and ther radish (right side) did grow slow, but they did grow from first of January to March, when the picture above was taken.

Because the Radish grew so slow, it was more of a swallen root, then a real vegetable. Tasted more woodish.

Some of them were edible, not big, but with a lot of flavour. Start of April were harvest for my radish.

The peas were great too, not really big amounts. But tasty, sweet peas from Plants of about 40cm height.

Sorry no Pictures were taken then.

Next update will show you:

-the preparation of summer Harvest, that startet early in the year 2016.

-the construction of V3.0 (because my neighbours were "blinded" by my Blue light)

-the construction and testing of my Aeroponics design(s)

-maybe i will get into light and my upgraded LED lamps.

so stay tuned and leave comments, if you have questions or suggestions.

-see you next Mission

Aka