This morning the temperature dropped as low as 0° F. I was planning on completing my Berkey style water filter build today but it was just so cold. I had to get creative to stay busy today.
It dawned on me how much warmer it should be in the geothermal greenhouse. I finally installed a large enough system to keep the fans and aquaponics system running 24/7. While it was 0° outside, it was 20° inside the geo.
Although it's cold as hell today, I think this will be the last of the real cold nights. I think we'll stay in the 20s and 30s going forward for the most part so I have been planning to start some seeds. I already have several starts I direct sowed in the geo and I planted many more seeds a week ago but I want to start more seeds and push the boundaries by trying to get some to sprout that shouldn't be planted until spring.
I really enjoyed my day, setting this grow tent up. It was so comfortable and warm in there, while it was really cold and covered in snow outside.
I decided to whip up a really simple, scrap material shelf that would tightly fit my seed trays so I could easily open the tent and spray them down.
These 9 trays are capable of starting 441 seeds. I loaded them up with my compost pile that's been breaking down a long time now. There's even biochar in there.
While I set it all up I set packets on each row to remember what I planted, where. I did a full tray of green beans and one of carrots. I mixed a tray with cosmos, nasturtiums and zenias. One tray is black seed lettuce, spinach and red romaine. I planted a tray of herbs, cilantro, parsley, oregano and bunching onions. I made a tray of black locust trees and moringa. One tray for pea flower and rose. And a mixed tray of fruit, cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon, and paya. I'm probably missing something. I listed them from memory.
When I was finished planting all the seeds I drew a simple diagram of the grow tent and trays then labeled each tray with the seeds I planted.
It was nice to feel like I was working on a spring day while it was so cold out. I'm really looking forward to seeing the geothermal and aquaponics thrive this year.
Leave me a comment if you have any questions or want to share what you've been starting for your spring garden.
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12 comments
Good morning Alex! Yea, it surprised me how well just PC fans work. There will be a lot of detail on this in my video that I’m publishing this morning. I do have a much more powerful fan on the way but the PC fans work.
I like that you did a push-pull scheme on geothermal vents. That’s how I did cooler fans on some medical device housings that I designed. Works great.
Hi Tiffany! You could definitely build an earth home that would function the same way. Creating a geothermal temperature system and having a large window on the southern side of the home.
Sounds like a great snowy day project. Neat stuff Sir. Hmm, Wondering if you could live in the geo? Be awesome to live in a garden. Haha keep up the great work.
Thank you Mike, for taking the time to visit my blog and leave a comment.