Elaine,Thanks for the tip about chlorinated tap water as a GOOD thing!

If someone's town doesn't add enough chlorine to discourage mold or fungus, another approach is to add just a little hydrogen peroxide to the water. Like 0.1% or 0.2% :

one to two ounces of 3% drugstore peroxide per quart of water

http://www.using-hydrogen-pero...

Elaine, I never even considered tap water being an advantage rather than a disadvantage when growing plants. Most everyone over the years has really beat the drum about how bad chlorinated water is for plants and how successful they are using rainwater. I have always used tap water but never had the courage to tout my use of it. I just thought I must be lucky or have some "magical" tap water, since I grow well over 500 plants from seedlings each and every year. Hurray for chlorinated water.

It might matter what your town uses to disinfect drinking water, and how much they add. They have to add more chlorine if the water started with a lot of pathogens, iron, Manganese, or dissolved or turbid organics.

I think they used to use plain Chlorine gas, but then most places changed over to some sodium salt or salts (sodium or calcium hypochlorite?)

I would have thought that Chlorine gas would be better for plants than sodium hypochlorite, but I don't really know.

Neither do I, Rick, neither do I.

I have no experience with 'real' greenhouses, but I have some experience with the little plastic zippy types.
Here is my first one, about 6 x 6 x 8 feet. Looked cute, zipper broke almost immediately, the shelves were flimsy but I used nylon zip ties and attached pieces of the wire closet shelving to make stronger shelves. I used two concrete pavers (visible in the first photo) on the lower shelves to keep it from tipping in the wind.


Then my dog found a chicken at midnight and the only safe place I could think of to put a chicken 'temporarily' was the zippy greenhouse. It worked out just fine for about a year, chicken and plants co-existed except for the plants that were tasty.

When the chicken was finished with her 'temporary' digs, here is what the zippy greenhouse looked like.


So I got a new one...zippy greenhouse, not chicken.

Since the weak points of of the old zippy were 1)the flimsly plastic and 2) the plastic connectors, the new zippy came with a pleasant green colored mesh-reinforced plastic. Also, I took a few days and a lot of patience to wrap/cover each plastic connector with outdoor duct tape.


Before I was finished with this job, a big wind knocked 'new zippy' over, so I built a heavy wooden frame for the base. (Note: there is no wooden 'floor' on the zippy; I was doing the work with the zippy up on my deck to save my back muscles.)


For your original question about seed germination, I am a firm believer in using straight vermiculite - learned the idea from Jonna Sudenius. This is my version. Had great success.

I'm looking forward to trying vermiculite for seed sowing this year (first I need to find some).

What has become of @Oscarsgirl2, who started this thread?

Good question. I have seen this happen numerous times and wonder why the initial poster never is heard of again. Hopefully, she/he just gets cold feet and is not somehow "hurt" by our responses.

Or she may just be shocked that she's had 27 responses in less than a week.

Or....it could be like um, it's two days before Christmas and @oscarsgirl2 may just be busy with family or celebrating a 30th anniversary.
I am looking forward to learning more about her aquaponics system.

That certainly could be the reason, Greene. Also, not everyone takes the time to frequently check back on ATP like I do.

How many times a day ken? I would guess with me, its usually every few hours unless I'm asleep.

Well, with me, and it depends on what I am doing, I check both my emails and ATP/DG at least every couple of hours. That's particularly true right now since my tropical plants shipping has pretty much come to an end. I have lots more time on my hands during the winter months. Since my tiny, cottage tropical plant business is pretty much web-based, I depend on emails to run my business.

She mentioned in another area that she doesn't get to the computer often. Heh, I got curious, too, and looked for any other posts. But, I always figure even if the original poster doesn't get back to the thread, someone else may find the information useful. And there is quite a bit of good info here!

Greene, I like your ideas for reinforcing the little plastic zippy greenhouses, but how did you keep the plastic cover from blowing off? Or do you not get much wind where you are?

That's the trick with the mini-greenhouses, how to hold them down in winds. Mine came with four-corner cord material and anchors you drive into the soil. I haven't even used mine yet (it is just for starting seedlings) but when I set it up in January, I will have two corners sitting near my landscape. I will use the cord/ground-anchors for those two corners (I actually double-up, so will have two anchors per corner). The other two corners are on the patio and I have a heavy bench along one side that I will tie a cord to and then have a large, heavy pot on the other corner that I will attach a cord to. Last year I had no trouble with this greenhouse moving.

Hmmm, you guys must not get the kind of wind we do here. I used the drive in the ground stakes, and the ties and even tied the velcro tapes that are supposed to hold the cover on the frame into knots as well as pressing the velcro ends together. The framework is nice and securely attached to the ground, and the adjacent building and I had no problem with it. It's just the cover that I can't keep on.

I have never had the cover move and it is nothing to get 50 mph winds with our frequent thunderstorms. If I am not mistaken, those chords are attached, not to the frame, but to the cover.

I'm always reminded of the Wizard of Oz by these discussions: greenhouses flying through the air and landing on top of wicked witches.