What Is and What Will Be In My Greenhouse

Beginning in April of 2011 I began to make plans to turn my existing greenhouse into an aquaponics garden.  At this point, late November of 2011 I have accomplished an initial harvest in the grow bins pictured on the lower part of the graphic above.  I am still harvesting tomatoes from the three bins pictured on the lower right and herbs including beet greens, mint, parsley and dill from the three bins pictured on the lower left.  I have yet to experience a success at growing fish.  State regulation of fish suitable for eating are a major block to stocking my pond with trout or other edible fish and since I have decided that koi will best suit, and I don't want to waste the lives of anymore fish until I have my other items in place, I have sustained my plants with occasional supplements of chelated iron and other minerals and soluble plant food. 
I am now ready to set up the next two sections of the growing area.  These include hanging tubes for vine plants along the north wall of the green house and trays for lettuces and similar plants along the center.  The growing trays are made of rain gutter with an electrical cable along the bottom to heat the water as it flows past the roots.  The lettuce will be planted in coco fiber contained in plastic cups. 

Several Ways to Harvest Sunlight

I have essentially finished my 'winter coop' which is adjacent to my greenhouse.  The picture above may require some explanation.  Under the corrugated polycarbonate sheet that constitutes the roof of my small chicken coop are two separate systems for harvesting solar power.  On the left is a solar panel with the battery pack above it.  This gathers electrical energy to power the 75 watt incandescent bulb that turns on for several hours in early morning with a timer, adding necessary light and heat.  On the right is a black painted panel on which I've placed 36 cheap water bottles.  During the day the black panel heats up the water in the bottles which is stored as thermal energy and released gradually as night falls. 

It's Getting Cold

We've had a couple of nights when the temperature fell below freezing but I've found some ways to add enough heat to the green house to avoid death of my tomatoes.  The first night I found out rather late in the day that it would freeze.  I quickly set up a little charcoal grill that has a domed cover.  We lit it and the following morning I found that most of the briquettes had been consumed, but not all.  Although I plan to eventually install the necessary heat and smoke dispersion to my chimenea, for now I found a room sized convection heater for less than $40 at Home Depot plus a 'Frost King' regulator plug in that will start the heater when the temperature drops to 35 degrees and stop the heater when the temperature raises to 45 degrees.  This will save on electricity costs while keeping the killing frosts at bay.  It is 'hard freeze' that kills plants. 
I also purchased four workshop 2 tube florescent light fixtures and a box of daylight (6500 kelvin) bulbs to add an additional amount of light and some heat directly over the grow bins.
I plan to plant lettuce, peas and spinach in rain gutter trays that are heated with a warming cable meant for seedling trays.  These are intended to be like the display at Green Sky where the water trickles down the gutter and discharges into the fish tank.  After looking at the price of 'rock wool' growing bricks and other alternatives I am using coco fiber in my grow cups.  This came about when I found a super sale on some hanging baskets furnished with coco fiber.
Meanwhile I'm making a mad dash to finish up my 'winter coop' which will use black painted tubes filled with water to gather heat during the day as well as a solar panel to run a fan and light.  It will be interesting to see how I get through the impending winter.

Expanding my Aquaponics System

I picked up a lot of great ideas at the Aquaponics Association convention.  Now I have to decide which are best for my limited space.  I plan to float an extruded styrene raft on top of my fish tank.  It will provide shade for the fish in the open part of the tank as well as providing some nutrition for the koi I plan to use instead of fish that I could eat.  As a semi-vegetarian my protein needs are better met by my 4 hens.  Furthermore, the regulations on growing fish for food in Utah create an insupportable cost factor ($100 dollars for a license).
  I plan to integrate horizontal growing trays for lettuce and similar herbs like I saw at Green Sky Aquaponics and 'The Land' at Epcot.  I will plumb them with a hose so I can move the wheeled table on which they stand in order to move from place to place in my greenhouse. 

Convention Starts Today

I'm in sunny Florida where I plan to attend the Aquaponics Association Conference being held near Disney World.  Although my fish have not thrived, I've had success wit my grow bins.  Beet greens are one of my favorite vegetables.  Beet sees planted in expanded shale don't grow bulbs, but they do produce a lovely crop of greens.  My tomato plants are growing lots of fruit.  I have tried growing seedlings in vermiculite to transplant to my grow beds but I have found that direct sowing of the seeds into the media is far more productive. 

Good Site for Growing Information

http://www.thevga.co.uk/index.cgi  provides information on growing zones for various vegetables, including information about greenhouses.

Moving right along.

My grow beds are happily growing but I think I overfed my gold fish.  I still have a couple of hardy survivors but the rest turned belly up.  My main activity this week has been harvesting and dehydrating 'golden' plums from the tree that grows next to the greenhouse where I have my hydroponics setup.  I was just getting prepared to go back and pick fruit when a number of my grandkids showed up.  The older children, 7, 6, and 5, really like picking plums.  I gave each of them a small plastic bucket and provided a table they could stand on.  They got busy and harvested a peck of nice plums which I have turned into dehydrated fruit.  I used a steel tube apple corer to remove the pits, taking more of the 'meat' than I liked, but far more efficient than any other method I tried.  Plums really hang on to their pits and most of the fruit directly around the  pit is somewhat more sour than I like.