So - So - Solar! Also known as "I set up the solar system"

For a lot of years - more than I care to say for fear of really giving away my age - I have been dreaming of a solar system.....for the greenhouse.  So I saved and scraped and saved some more, and I took the Intro to Renewable Energy class at UAA-Mat-Su so I could learn how to do this and not be afraid of the math or the electricity! (I really was afraid of both).  I am enrolled in the Renewable Energy Certificate program at the local College (http://matsu.alaska.edu) and although I am only able to take about one class per semester it have been a great learning experience for me and to know that others have the same mind set as well bodes well for the future of the planet!

 

I started with the above items;  a Sunforce (www.sunforceproducts.com)  4 panel, 60 watt system, and two 6 volt deep cycle batteries from Batteries Plus (www.batteriesplus.com).  And a little appliance that we call "the tiny fireplace", on the right in the above picture, which is a small electric fireplace that we got from Fred Meyer (Kroger).  It is designed to heat 420 square feet of space which is perfect for the greenhouse.  My husband wont let me plug it in since it takes a ton of electricity and so produce that was grown using the on-grid tiny fireplace would not be worth it.  So to get to a year around greenhouse situatioin I have to be able to go off-grid with the tiny fireplace.  My total cost including the tiny fireplace is right about $750.00.  I know it wounds like a lot but if I can have a year around greenhouse I will save that much in less gthan one year in produce.

 

The far left corner of the greenhouse is the location I chose for the panels to be placed.  It is proteccted from the wind and gets really early sun most of the year. 

Here are the tools I used to put the panels and the system together.  The coffee was absolutely necessary!

First Panel in position - it was really easy and did not take as long as I was anticipating!

 

 

 

Above - all the panels in place ready for action.  I put the tester on it while it was still in the greenhouse and it siad charging!  Yay!

Here is the panel array ready to be mounted to the greenhouse wall - you can see behind it the cord running through the wall into the greenhouse.  I need some help to hold up the panel array while I put the screws to hold it up.

Here is the magic cord coming through the greenhouse wall.  I pulled one of the pieces of blue board out, ran the cord through and replaced the blud board so there wont be an open hole letting in cold air.

Testing the array - green means go!

Here are the batteries in position.  Later I will put them in a tote of some kind so that I have adequate air circulation and so they can be moved if I should need to.

All hooked up ready to go!  The blue box on the wall is the charge regulator and it has two lights on it that cant be seen no matter how many pictures I take.  One is a charging light and one is "charged".

I know it doesnt look like it but that fan is running totally on solar power! About three hours start to finish, including mounting on the greenhouse wall (which is done now - I just forgot to take a pic of it!).  So far I have tested the fan (works), a drill (works) and the tiny fireplace (doesn't work).  Sadly the heat part of the tiny fireplace does not work with the solar and sets off the alarm of the power inverter.  I think I may have too heavy a load for startup of the heat portion of the fireplace.  The flickering flames work just fine just not the actual heat part.  I will have to do some research on what can be done to correct the situation.  But for now - Happy little fan blowing for free and keeping my plants healthy!

 

Ultimate upcycle - Building the cold frame

Every year I have treid to grow squash and Reed has tried to grow pumpkins with no success.  We get them all growing and strong in the greenhouse but as soon as we move them outside the wind would take the leafy sails right out of them.  Why not leave them in the greenhouse you ask?  Because they don''t like it in there for very long and they dont set as much produce and the produce rots or they get wilt - a variety of reasons.

This year I decided to build a cold frame off the back of the greenhouse - it was actually two years ago that I decided to build it but just finally got organized and enough time this year.  I started with the storm windows left over from the greenhouse:

I used the wood from a couple of pallets that I needed to recycle, the wood from a mattress box spring I took apart and recycled (the material went to use as row cover - it works great), and I also used some left over t-111 from the greenhouse siding, and an old dock that never got built and was 2x6 pine in 6' lenghts.  I had to buy a few trim pieces to get enough wood to build the window frames and of course I broke one of the windows and had to cut one to fit!  One of my best tricks!

This is the location I chose to build the attached cold frame.  It gets full sun and any wind that blows will be blocked by the wall I built for the frame.

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 Here is the first window in the frame that I built - I will show you why I blocked this particular window on the corners later.  The pallets (blue) behind it are where I pulled some of the wood off of.  Pallets are harder to get apart then they appear - a big portion of my time investment in this project was taking apart pallets!  Worth it though!

I used the angle plywood pieces that came off of the barn shape of the greenhouse for the end wall pieces - they are the perfect angle for the windows below.

I used trim pieces along the back wall of the greenhouse to attach my hinges to and I did have to use strips of the siding pieces in between to get my total length.  It was a blessing as it added support that I would not have otherwise had and avoids sag in the center possibly breaking the windows.

You can see the supports along the sides of the windows and in the back of the cold frame.

 Above you can see the finished cold frame - I had to block the window to the very right so that it cannot be opened all the way and run into the greenhouse window above it which is an opener.  I would have had broken windows on one of the buildings if I hadn't done that.  The center window also opens but it it just high enough to allow the frame section below it to open all the way.  I used hook and eye fasteners to hold the frame sections open and the hook and eye on the most right hand frame section has a piece of wire to give it the distance it needed.

In the above photo you can see where there are some of the staples and fluff from the box spring still attached to one of the window frame boards.  I didnt see a need to remove all the staples.

 

Happy squash plants in the cold frame!

 

I will still have to go back around and place some strips of insulation where not everything meets perfectly so that I can have the season extension that I want.  I also try ot leave it open when it is raining as often as possible so that it gets some of the natural water.

 

Stay tuned for further mattress recycle ideas - mattresses are great to use in the garden!

Ultimate Upcycle - building the green house

Two years ago my neighbors helped us build a greenhouse. Separate from the house, insulated with blue board on the walls, and on the floor is blue board with 1/2" of concrete  on the top.  It holds the heat really well but right at this point is not a year round green house.  I have been reading Elliot Colemans book about the year round greenhouse and we have tried some of the methods in there - however - it got down to -52 below and all my stuff died.  So we go forward with faith and a solar system that we are working on - that is for another blog however!

Today I want to tell you about the mostly easy and almost all upcycled greenhouse we built, with a lot of help from my friends, family and my neighbor - who is also a best friend and her husband who was on Chemo for cancer at the time.  He worked us into the dirt literally with his chemo pack on!  I thank the Goddess every day for him and for the amazing greenhouse he built for me!

To start with we cleared a space big enough for the 16x20 foot greenhouse I had planned and then we partially buried treated wood timbers that we were able to find free from Craigslist - we just had to haul them away! 

We then poured sand down as a base for the blue board with concrete on top - which we got on Craigslist for $2.00 per sheet.  After that it was a frame-a-thon, but first we got windows - you can see part of them here - we got them free from one of the contractors doing energy efficiency upgrades for homes in the area.  Again - we just had to haul them away!  We had to choose which windows we were using first so we had the framed areas properly outlined.

We built the greenhouse in a barn shape to catch all of the suns rays in the winter - the sun in Alaska is pretty flat on the landscape and windows on a flat plane dont catch as much of the sun as windows at the angle of the barn shape side.  We did mostly new 2x4's and new roofing material which is rolled felt and rolled shingle lapped and sealed.


 

 The above photo shows the ceiling with the blue board insulation and you can see two mirrors there as well.  Those collect light and reflect it back to the center of the greenhouse so even if my plants grow up tall in front of the windows, the plants in the center of the greenhouse still get light.  It works great and the mirrors are really pretty ones that I got at the Thrift store for about $10.00 each.  They act like skylights.  I will add more as we go to up the effect and once lights are added will arrange them for the best effect.

Here is the back of the greenhouse - two of these three windows open.  Notice the eave of the greenhouse - we started out with the eave right on the roofline of the building but we found that all of the windows would not seal effectively on the angle, and that the summer sun was too hot sometimes for the plants so we added this one foot eave and it has solved all of the probelms with heat and leaks!

The front of the greenhouse is the home of a great set of french doors that open in - traded for some of the left over windows to a friend - so free!  We had them open in so that no matter how deep snow got I can still open them to get into the greenhouse and shovel snow out - or just get in.  Both doors are openers so I can get large loads in the wheelbarrow or yard cart or even from the back of a truck in there! 

 

The greenhouse is plced in the lee of our house so when the wind blows in the winter it is protected by the main house.  It slows the morning sun in the early spring, but usually we have sun on the greenhosue by no later than 10:00 am no matter what time of year we are in.

 

It is still a work in progress - in need of paint, and some foam insulation to seal some gaps and cracks in the blue board, but we are getting produce until Late October right now and one time into November so we are moving in the right direction.  Ill keep posting as we add new features.  If you have any questions please ask and Ill do my best to answer!  Happy producing!

A Promise Kept - A Wicked Raven Designs Tale

About two years ago I made a quilt for the Houston High School Hockey team to raffle off (I actually make one a year for the cause), and while I was parading it around the school selling raffle tickets, one of the young ladies from the school who has had less than a desirable path so far, been homeless, kicked out, couch surfed, etc.... asked me what she would have to do to get a quilt made by me.  She had also been struggling with her grades and getting to and staying in school.  I told her that if she graduated from high school I would make her a quilt.  She kept her promise and I kept mine!

 

 

I won these blocks at a family quilt retreat last November and the colors were just right for a great batik purple fabric I had waiting for the perfect project.  It is bright and cheerful and a little smaller than double sized so it should travel well with her to college - she already is there getting started on doing great things!  We all have something we can do to make someone's life a little better - for me it's quilting and gardening, for some it's cooking, and for others it's helping them plan great things.  Although I am sad to see my family blocks go far away, I know this quilt has a higher purpose and needs to travel with this young lady and not be stored in a closet or on the back of a couch!  Happy Days!