(upbeat music) - Welcome to Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

I'm your host, Kim Todd, and on Digging Deeper, we have in-depth discussions with extension and industry experts about all those important landscape topics.

Tonight, we are talking about hobby greenhouses with Stacy Adams, who is an associate professor, but he's just a regular guy.

So Stacy, part of the reason we are talking hobby greenhouses is because you have one, you teach it, you love it.

And you are getting a lot of questions about it.

Especially as people are thinking about coming off out of the pandemic, they maybe didn't have anything to do.

They wanna grow their own food.

They wanted somewhere nice and warm and full of plants.

So, let's have at what exactly is a hobby greenhouse and how do people get started?

- So, a hobby greenhouse is a great opportunity for you to just have a respite from everyday life.

Honestly, get away from the television, computer, Facebook, whatever.

But if you have any interest in gardening, I know a lot of times you're just kind of limited of how much you can do 'cause you just have to patiently work with whatever the weather is.

So, a hobby greenhouse allows you to go on and extend the season into the fall.

In my greenhouse, I went in to put in heating and everything so I could run it clear through the whole winter time.

And then in the spring, maybe transitioned to other crops and getting ready for the summer.

- So, what's the difference between a hobby greenhouse and a non hobby greenhouse?

- Well, a hobby greenhouse, if it was mine, I would have a huge one honestly, and I used to have a big greenhouse for commercial basis and they're quite expensive to operate.

So that's something somebody needs to really think about.

Having a hobby greenhouse that's large enough that they can do the different activities they want to, but also manageably affordable to install and to keep it running.

So the hobby greenhouse that I have is 12 feet wide and 18 feet long, which is a really nice size to do a variety of things with it.

- So, when you're talking dimensions on something like this, you start out with obviously what you want to do in it, what you wanna grow.

Do you then balance that against basic lengths of materials, those kinds of things?

- Yeah, so a lot of people wanna try and construct their own out of random material.

And I have to admit the first hobby greenhouse I had, believe it or not, was when I was in high school.

My dad was a contractor, collected windows and stuff, and we build it out of that.

But the thing you have to think about is how mechanized we're gonna make the greenhouse.

And then what the quality of construction is.

So the better constructed units will tend to be able to manage the temperature better on the inside.

So, what you have to think of is we have a cube or a block, and if we can manage the temperature really well on the inside, we get to use a lot of the space.

However, if it's less well constructed, has leaky things in it, then you're gonna have a lot of temperature stratification that can occur in it.

So I kind of think of the hobby greenhouse is maybe you kind of learn the character of it and you could have like cool things down low, shade stuff in the back, and then you can have warm, loving stuff higher up in the greenhouse.

- So, do you do all those things in yours?

- It's kind of funny, yes.

So, we're all tired of this COVID thing, but I do teach and I had to continue teaching my classes.

So, some of the stuff I was doing was hydroponics.

So in the fall last year, I was doing tomatoes, hydroponically, as well as some lettuce.

And then definitely basil and things like that.

And then I have a few pet plants, so I like to toy toy with bonsai and some foliage stuff.

And then I thought, I have this hobby greenhouse, a lot of times we buy plant stocks in.

So I just started some things by seed, like tree seedlings and just, yeah.

So I did all these different things.

The challenge though, was when it got really cold and the day length, that's the other thing in Nebraska, our day length gets really short.

- Right.

- And so I had to introduce LED lighting on some of the crops because they just won't grow.

There's just not enough light to make it happen.

So, as I said, you can keep adding things to it, to make it functional.

Then in the middle of the winter, I basically transitioned it.

In around 1st of February, I went on and started like lots of bedding plants and geranium seedling or geranium cuttings, foliage plants.

And I packed that greenhouse like you wouldn't believe.

So I had a really good time.

- So in a 12 foot span- - Yeah.

- Do you have two benches on the wall and one down the middle?

- Yeah, so there's a story behind the greenhouse.

The one I have is 12 foot wide and 18 feet long, and you can buy these pre sized.

And this one, actually the frame was from somebody's hobby greenhouse I salvaged pieces from.

So the problem is, is you have these outer benches are three feet and three feet, that leaves this remaining six feet in the middle, which is kind of awkward to deal with.

But in the fall it worked out well.

'Cause I ran my hydroponics down the center, just made it 14 inches wide, 16 inches wide, and I could access either side plus the benches on the wall.

But then when spring came, I ended up taking the hydroponics out and I made little four foot by four foot square benches that I could slide out from under the sidewall benches.

So it's kind of flexible space.

So you have to think about that.

And then I put rails up over top and I grew about 20 hanging baskets.

- Wow, so really efficient use of the space.

- It was packed pretty tight.

- Pretty fun.

- And the furnace I did use is, is one that you can actually get from a local, like a Lumber Yard, it's called a garage furnace, thirty-five thousand BTU.

So even this spring, when we had that minus 30 degrees fahrenheit, I was able to keep the greenhouse at 60 degrees on the inside.

- Wow, so one of your plants actually bit the dust?

- No, I had some banana trees though, and they were larger and they were sitting on the floor so that, as I said, that temperature stratification was a bit of a problem and they did freeze back, but it didn't freeze the main part.

So they did come out of it.

- So is the floor, did you pour a concrete floor or?

- No, I wanted to really badly, but it was kind of like, honestly, some of the utilities were getting kind of expensive.

'Cause I knew I needed water and I needed gas and electric for it.

And I kind of forgot the concrete 'cause that was just another expense to it.

And honestly concrete is pretty much necessary on the inside.

- [Kim] Keeps it a lot cleaner.

- Yeah.

- So, is it important for people to think about orientation for a hobby greenhouse?

- Yes, and it's kinda weird.

'Cause if you grab a book off of the shelf, I've seen them at Lumber Yards about greenhouses from a company that offers these things up.

They're talking about in our area, you should be running them east to west.

So typically though, commercial greenhouses I like to run north to south, but given the situation at my own home, I went on and put it east to west.

And I've only grown plants in an east-west greenhouse.

One other time that was before I moved to Nebraska, which is cleared down by Oklahoma.

And I hated it even down there.

And I got to admit, I really don't care for it on an east-west because what happens is I have a very hot wall on the south wall.

- [Kim] Sure.

- Lots of light.

And the problem is if you think about it, when I was doing hydroponics, my tomatoes got eight feet tall in the middle.

So then everything on the north side was shaded.

- Shade.

- And that's where I ended up putting the LED lights.

So if I was to do it again, and I told my wife, when I retire, I'm gonna get a bigger hobby greenhouse.

It will be a north south orientation because when the sun comes across, you get uniform light clear through as the day passes.

So even if you have rows of plants, it will fairly uniform, light the whole thing.

- Yeah, that's really odd that they would say east to west.

- Yes, I should probably dig why they're saying it.

You do get a lot of light, but every time I used to grow in a greenhouse commercially, 'cause I used to grow poinsettias and chrysanthemums at easterlies, the crazy things would just go up and lean towards the light.

- [Kim] Right.

- And I, in all the years I've grown in north south houses.

They don't tend to do that as much.

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And especially if it's something that you then can apply to your own home situation.

All right, Stacy, so you brought toys.

- Yes.

- So let's talk about the toys and what they have to do with your hobby greenhouse.

- If anybody happened to watch the segment that we did with The Hobby Greenhouse, you'll see that mine was covered with a hard skin covering.

A lot of people though, when they wanna get affordable, they'll use polyethylene.

So this is actually what polyethylene film is.

And this one's actually got a double layer.

So poly, energy conservation wise is a terrible insulator.

So what we do a lot of times in the industry is we'll go on and inflate it about four inches deep.

And it's two layers.

Now this is not regular construction plastic it's greenhouse grade.

It has to be UV light protected plastic.

When we put that double layer in there, we can get some insulated quality to it.

So if we just use a standard of one, one layer of plastic would add about 25% more heat load by putting two layers, we can knock that down to 70% of a standard of one.

Does that make sense?

- Sure.

- The problem though, with plastic is it looks clear, but it's not very clear, is it?

- It's not.

- It's pretty opaque.

- Right.

- So if you think about when we're heating a greenhouse, the light gets really low in there.

So, most affordable use simple poly locking system.

So the poly just goes in there and you just use a wiggle wire snap in, or this is a two piece one, and you can see this is the base channel right here.

And then this just goes on and snaps on to lock that into place.

So let's see if I can do it.

Can't do it right now.

(laughing) Okay.

- It's supposed to be easy.

- We try, it should be easy, but it's way too short, cause they're usually going to be continuous.

But my hobby greenhouse is actually acrylic.

Look at that, that's three quarters of an inch thick.

They call that 16 millimeter acrylic.

It's plexiglass.

- [Kim] Sure.

- And it's got the dead airspace.

So this one is like I said, a standard of one, this one's actually about 60% heat loads.

So very insulated, and that's why in my hobby greenhouse, I can keep it fairly warm.

- [Kim] Sure.

- I did use sliding glass door windows on part of it.

So if you see glass on it, that's what those are.

They're extremely heavy.

But I just had access to a whole bunch of doors.

So that's why those are on there too.

Most homeowners, they are gonna wanna use this.

This is a twin, a two layer polycarbonate sheet.

And this is actually readily available locally at some of our Lumber Yards that we have.

This one actually is eight millimeters thick, but you see it's fluted.

- [Kim] Right.

- It has just as good of insulative qualities as this.

And this is a lot more cost efficient because this one can be applied directly onto the structure and you can screw through it.

Where plexiglass, you cannot run screws through.

We actually have to use what we call a glazing extrusion, where this goes on like this.

And then it has a glazing bar that just snaps over the top.

- [Kim] It sounds complicated, but it probably isn't, especially if you've ever built anything out of Legos.

- Basically, cheapest.

- [Kim] Right.

- I would invest in this because you can actually fairly easily put this on and on my greenhouse, it's just that, it is what's holding it in place with screws.

But when you get into sinking, you really want this product, which has 25 year longevity.

- [Kim] Wow.

- You're treating it like glass, just what you are.

I do wanna caution people though, this is also available at the Garden Center or at the Lumber Yard.

And this is a single layer polycarbonate, you notice how it's corrugated.

So that gives us a lot more about 30% more surface area.

So that adds to your heat load.

- [Kim] Sure.

- Yeah, plus you can see it's a single layer.

- [Kim] Right.

- So that's that.

And then the other things I brought, I just thought it was an interest because if you watch the video for "My Hobby Greenhouse," you'll see, I have a black shade cloth up to reduce the light.

'Cause our light intensity during the summer gets very hot.

- [Kim] Sure.

- And if you notice, when we shot the video, it was still in July.

And I still have a lot of beautiful plants in there.

We couldn't do that unless we had knocked down the heat.

So I like this product.

This is Miller and this one is 30% shade.

So, if you hold that up, you can see.

- [Kim] Wow.

- The stuff I have in my hobby green house has about 45% shade.

I wouldn't go any more than that.

'Cause it gets too dark.

And then your plants start stretching.

But if you're an African violet person, Streptocarpus, Cape Primrose.

Yeah, any of that stuff, you'd like to do that.

- [Kim] So, that's so different than what people think of as shade cloth.

- Yeah.

- It seems high-tech in comparison.

- Well, this one, this is Miller and the reason they're doing that is because it reflects the solar rays rather than heating up.

So this black here, so the shade cloth I have on my greenhouse is really old and it's absorbing the heat.

So it gets kind of hot itself.

But manufacturers now are offering these, this is like I said, reflective.

So it stays cool.

They offer this blue one, which is pretty, but actually blue enhances vegetative growth on plants.

So we can get some shade, but we can enhance the light spectrum that plants use to grow, very deep.

And white is available out there, which also will reduce the light and prevent it from getting hot.

So these are just some samples that a company sent me.

The stuff's not inexpensive by any means, but it is one of those little investments you can add to your hobby greenhouse that you have.

- So, I suppose people really wouldn't need, if they really didn't want to go to the effort of shade cloth.

- [Stacy] Right.

- They just don't grow things in the hobby greenhouse in the summer.

- Honestly, I've used all bedsheets, white, they're pretty inexpensive.

And you can put that up or like muslin.

And like I said, if you position plants.

So in my hobby greenhouse, I have it layered where I have a shelving up high and a shelving lower.

So I put the shade loving plants underneath, and I'll put the cactus and succulents up on the very top or geraniums or whatever it is.

So, it's actually kind of fun.

'Cause it's kind of like always changing what you're growing and what's being exposed in there.

- [Kim] So, one more sort of really important question here, which would be water.

Do you water by hand, do you?

- Well, so this is where the concrete comes into play.

If you had concrete on the floor, we can manage the moisture on the inside of the structure.

During the summer, it's okay to have all that extra moisture.

'Cause then you get the evaporation, which cools the greenhouse.

In the wintertime, it's a real nightmare because I have basically dirt floors.

I put gravel and then I put a weed barrier over.

And when it gets hydrated, I mean, I've got humidity that's crazy.

And- - And then you have disease.

- Disease can be a problem.

So I do run fans to keep the air moving.

So, concrete would help us out if we did that.

But if you don't have the money for the concrete, like I said, I used a weed barrier on there 'cause I've had a greenhouse where I just had gravel floors and we're not perfect people.

So dirt falls and leaf debris falls and the weed barrier, they use them in nurseries, if you've ever been to a nursery.

- [Kim] All the time.

- 'Cause you can take a broom and sweep it up.

So that's kind of nice.

And then it lets the water penetrate in there.

- Right.

- So the other thing is cooling the greenhouse.

So I have my vents kind of crazy on my greenhouse 'cause I live out in the country on a hill.

So the wind blows through.

So I have vents actually on both the south side and the north side and one on the ridge and I can open those all up and I get a really good airflow.

And then the other thing is my potting shed.

I don't know if you saw the potting shed, but that's an old plastic.

Well, those garden things, I modified it and made it into a potting shed because my hobby greenhouse is too important for growing plants.

I didn't want a place to store junk.

So I've put the shed on there, but it's really nice.

'Cause I have a work room that I can keep all my fertilizer and stuff.

And then you did talk about water.

I couldn't afford to put a water line in.

So I actually put a a hundred gallon horse tank in under the bench and put it on the south side, so the sun can warm the water up and I get tempered water when I water my plants.

- Seeing those are perfect things to tell people, because in the first place, it's more do-it-yourself.

- Right.

- And, again, I mean just thinking about running a water line and doing an automated system and then probably you would not, especially since you like to fiddle around with different plants, you run your line, you have everything all set.

What if this one doesn't like it?

- Yeah.

- That side of the bench does then you're really stuck with what you want.

So what would you leave our audience, we have about one minute, what would you leave our audience with if they're really excited and interested in this?

- If you're really excited about something like this, you do need to really focus on building a hobby greenhouse and you probably need to get a quality one.

You could even have a contractor build one for you.

Just making sure that it's not constructed like a sunroom, because these are a different character.

We need to have a lot of light in there and you need to think about the spaces for the plants, have some room for you to work.

But yeah, and then don't try and skirt on a couple things.

One is making sure you have a good quality outer covering.

You do have water.

And if you would like to use it in the winter, make sure you use a vented heater.

So like one yes, because some people will use an unvented heater and one is not healthy for us.

But two, I mean, think about plants there are the same as humans, honestly, and they'll get crazy curling and weird stuff.

- [Kim] All right.

- If you are thinking about a hobby greenhouse, go on and do it.

- Sounds like a great idea.

Unfortunately, also that is all the time we have for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

We wanna say thanks to Stacy for coming in and talking to us today, we will be back next time with another in-depth discussion, do be sure to watch Backyard Farmer live every Thursday at 7:00 PM Central on Nebraska Public Media.

Thanks for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

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