Hi Kylie,
- what is your hothouse made from? if it's not too much trouble to
describe it briefly.
Its made from steel hoops with plastic film stretched over it. I bought it
from Monbulk Rural Enterprises.
http://www.monbulkrural.com.au/
They make them to size in approximately 2.1 meter increments in length. The
film is made with a non-drip inside surface and has a slightly insulative
property. I added 3 extra rails, a central rail between the top of the doors
and one down either side at about 2 metres high offset 100mm inwards.
These are used for supporting the twine that the tomato clips attach to and
for supporting a trellis mesh when needed. The irrigation feed lines for
drip irrigation run down each side and along the central rail.
As a general rule the daytime temperature inside will reach nearly
double the outside maximum, so it is important to keep the doors open on a
day that goes over 23 degrees max. Tomatoes require somewhere between 12 and
14 degrees for the chemical process that makes them turn red, so the greater
temperature of the hothouse means that the tomato season is increased in
length.
and i take it you are growing directly in the soil, yes?
Yes. The Dandenongs mountain soil is acidic and clay based, parts closer to
the clay under-soil where I placed my hothouse had a pH of 5, so quite a bit
of preparation was called for to get it back to the optimum of 6.5. I have
made a double bay compost bin and will be digging in a bit over 1 cubic
meter of compost after this growing season to increase the biota in the
soil.
i succumbed & started using derris dust, if that helps you for next year.
i could keep the butterflies off iwth netting, but not the moths (which
are smaller).
I tried some derris dust, but didn't like the idea of eating the broccoli
heads as it is quite hard to wash them out, so gave up.
one year i am going to try enclosed boxes made of flyscreen
& see how that goes
The flyscreen sounds good, but I wonder if it might shade too much of the
light. If you do try the flyscreen boxes, please post the results.
I'd like to hear how they go.
Regards, Ed.
"0tterbot" wrote in message
...
"Ed Adamthwaite" wrote in message
...
Hi Chookie,
I have had a fantastic summer (Belgrave in the Dandenongs Victoria).
Built a 6.5 x 3 metre hot-house on new ground, conditioned the soil with
lime and gypsum to get the pH correct. Dug in cow poo, horse poo and pea
straw, leaving some pea straw on top for about 6 months. Planted tomatoes
in
late September and was harvesting by Christmas. I trialled a grafted
Apollo
from Bunnings. It has spread out to 4 branches, so far yielding more than
60
tomatoes averaging 300g each. The biggest so far was 600g!
The other tomatoes are producing well too. A mis-labelled beefsteak plant
turned out to be a cherry tomato. I have picked hundreds from it and it
still
has heaps! I use tomato growers' clips to suspend the vines from a rail.
Normal binders string breaks under the load. I use thetwine from the pea
straw bales now.
Every day I take a couple of tomatoes and a cucumber to work just to keep
up. (The ladies at work have asked if I'm trying to suggest something).
lmao!! you'll have to stop giving them two tomatoes and a cucumber each
g
I take Zucchinis grown outside the hot-house too.
I've bottled heaps of tomato source and spaghetti source, using chopped
up
zucchini in the spaghetti sauce.
The chillis have gone nuts! They love the hot-house. The capsicums are
incredible. It's the first time I've grown them. They are so much better
than
the weeks old garbage that Safeways sell.
The tomatoes I planted outside are just starting to go red now, but seem
to
be suffering from some type of wilt. I think the hot-house protects the
plants inside from air-bourne nasties. The only downer is the broccoli,
It
grew OK but I couldn't keep up with the white cabbage moth grubs. A leaf
would turn into lace over night.
i succumbed & started using derris dust, if that helps you for next year.
i could keep the butterflies off iwth netting, but not the moths (which
are smaller). one year i am going to try enclosed boxes made of flyscreen
& see how that goes.
I reckon the hot-house is the best thing. I've never had such a prolific
harvest before.
I hope that next year is as good.
Regards,
Ed.
disregarding the fact that i'm nearly purple with envy - what is your
hothouse made from? if it's not too much trouble to describe it briefly.
and i take it you are growing directly in the soil, yes?
kylie