Silver_Surfer ..... Thanks. I'm sure hoping they'll make life better.
Josh our winters can get very cold. Most seasons in my part of Texas can have some craziness going on at periods. At first I thought I might want to grow all year long , but after learning more ...... like you have fight bugs because like the plants inside a warm green house is like a trip to the Islands. Our winters can be harsh depends on the year. Sometimes we'll have snow waist deep for weeks. Most the time it'll snow and the sun will come out again and everything thaws in a couple of days. I'm thinking if I have to supplement light with HID bulbs and supplement much heat , then add in all the hardware , timers , venting , yada yada that takes to have a full blown green house it would start getting pricey. The main thing I enjoy growing is peppers. But would be cheaper to buy peppers from CCN and freeze them than try and grow them in a green house year around.
The main reason I want these is all to often the weather here is not your friend. This year the high wind kept blowing over smaller plants in 1 gal pots that I was hardening off. So it busted up really pretty plants. They're still with me ... but they'd be bigger and better plants. Also we get hail , some years big enough to make the national news.This year in late May into mid June the temps went sky high .... lots of my plant got sunburned. So I want a place to guard my plants a little. I want to be able get them out early but keep them safe.
A fellow with a huge Green House here has some polycarbonate panels that I can get for a song. The have slight hail damage but should work great for what I want. So when I need to keep heat in and cover the plants from hail I can use the panels , then remove them when hail season is over. Removing them will give me more fresh air so I don't need venting to cool things down inside the frames.If and when the temps get crazy high I can use shade cloth. To extend my season I can use the panels or part of panels on top and plastic sheeting lower down. That should guard me until we really get into the deep freeze days.
That's my game plan anyway. But I know I have a learning curve to get over on this.
Peace,
P. Dreadie