Just a note that the latest of these Chinese greenhouses have a "shaker" attached to the metal frame and it is capable of shaking a build-up of snow off the greenhouse before it gets too heavy and crushes the building.

@tukek88

7 ай бұрын

audio is really poor in this video

One additional component I have seen in some designs is a composting trough either on the east and west walls, or in sections throughout the bed. The greenhouse keeps the temperature above what's needed for successful composting, and the compost itself throws off additional heat on a 24-hour basis, keeping the greenhouse temperature stable in the face of nighttime cold. If you mentioned this in your video, I'm sorry I missed it The audio is weak in this video and my laptop has terrible speakers, so i was relying on closed captioning.

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

7 ай бұрын

Yes, I got some complaints about the audio, Maybe I will just upload it with volume higher? I haven't seen the designs with a composting trough, but I like the idea. Where can I see them? (If I reupload, I might as well add a bit to the video). I actually put a lot of 3/4 way composted material under my beds so it is almost the same thing. In my original 4 seasons greenhouse design, I have a blue barrel for compost on the north side, half in the greenhouse and insulated on the outside. I was just afraid of getting flies in the greenhouse and I never implemented it. (Plus, the opening I originally made for this, I made a little small. My greenhouse in general is a bit small too. To conform to the bylaws here in Victoria. I do have a 5 gallon bucket in the greenhouse now, I fill full of green material, that I drip water through to keep a top shelf of herbs and lettuce fertilized. Only started this in September so I don't know how well it works yet.

@bearnaff9387

7 ай бұрын

@@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions Alas, I'm not able to find the source. I am pretty sure it was on KZread - some video about this style of greenhouse - but it's been years and years since I saw it.

@bearnaff9387

7 ай бұрын

@@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions Ah-HA! I found the article. It's the lowtechmagazine article on Chinese passive greenhouses titled "Reiventing the Greenhouse". Just google "lowtechmagazine" and the title. You can find the section by searching the article for "Compost Heated Greenhouses", which is the section title for the relevant parts of the article.

I got a very interesting comment a few days ago from a channel called "borrowed time" but today the comment and the channel are gone :( One thing he says is "Depends on your region and location. It's hardly a cookie cutter one type fits all design." And that is at the heart of what I am trying to get across with my greenhouse and sun angle videos! Everyone should be designing for their local conditions and local sun angles. For instance, I live in Victoria BC. I am not allowed to build a giant greenhouse (Bylaws say 107 sq ft or less), so I must make something that is much less than optimal. It's desert conditions in most recent summers here so I tried to make a greenhouse that harvested the water of transpiration in summer without getting too hot. And I had some success with that. The greenhouse used far less water than my outside garden while also being more productive and less affected by pests. We had 39C for a week that summer, and my greenhouse plants didn't die, even though I have far less ventilation than typical greenhouses and very high humidity. In midwinter here it's usually incredibly dull and rainy. That's why the north wall is reflective, to bounce light back to the plants. Then in late January and february, it is usually colder but sunnier and the days are significantly longer so the greenhouse is much warmer and the plants love that. In Calgary, on the other hand, it is really cold (but very sunny) all through the winter. And that might mean that a dark heat absorbing back wall might work better there, because they don't have that limited light we have even though it might be 10C or 20C colder there on any given winter day.

@leafbranch1872

Жыл бұрын

Is there some reason for the 107 SQ ft restrictions?

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

Жыл бұрын

@@leafbranch1872 Oh, sorry, I live in a city Victoria BC and if you make a glass greenhouse here, they limit you to the same rules and maximum size as a shed (10 sq meters, 107 sq ft). You can get a permit to build bigger but it is vastly more expensive if you do that. I did lobby our council for a larger limit for greenhouses but they did not want to hear it. (You can build a bigger plastic greenhouse here). It's not a great attitude. WW3 could break out tomorrow, and we could easily get another pandemic or crazy weather in California (where all our food comes from).

Thank you for this!

Nice to see a thinking man on social media. Worthwhile thoughts and plans.

Can you see a return of greenhouses beeing heated with compost again?

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

Жыл бұрын

To some extent. Some people are already doing it, it isn't just for warmth. Compost is also a CO2 source. That's really important in winter because you can reduce the ventilation to keep it warmer and still have enough CO2 for the plants. I'll be putting about 100 liters of partly rotted compost in my 107 sq meter greenhouse within the next few days so I guess I do it. I want to do a couple more videos about "season extender" greenhouses. And also about small urban winter greenhouses.

Very interesting to see thanks. I've just published a video on passive solar and on our FB page there was a small discussion about this very topic.

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

Жыл бұрын

Thank you, please check my video about sun path diagrams. Note, the sun shines from the south in the Winter. From March 21 to September 21, it spends a surprising amount of time NORTH of the east west line! and that time gets longer the further north you go. For instance in June, where I live at 48.5 north, it shines for 7 hours a day from north of the east west line. Its longer where you live! At the end of the sun path video, I give suggestions for a new type of greenhouse design that might work for you. Also, my greenhouse has a few unique features that you might be able to incorporate. I have computer fans (powered by a solar panel) blowing air through pipes under the soil (to warm the soil and condense the water in the air). And I use airlift pumps that lift water into boarscares to water the plants. I call this "soiloponics. It's 95% automatic. People say, "don't water too much because you will get diseases". OK, maybe. My plants do fine in the winter (except tomatoes) and my plants don't get spider mites because spider mites hate humidity. I think spider mites are the worst pest ever. And you can't even see them. Thanks for commenting. Brian

@BalticHomesteaders

Жыл бұрын

@@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions I had planned to use a lot of tech in the greenhouse, I already have purchased a lot of electronics and Rasp Pi etc and have been looking for the right computer fan or a car radiator fan all solar powered. To be honest that would have happened with or without the PSG build but I will check out your other videos now that I've found you. My vid was a basic introduction for my Baltic audience as there's nothing like it here. No doubt the finished PSG will be different to how I'd planned right now as I find more applicable research. Thanks.

There is the new alchemy institute composte heating greenhouse system wich is very clever, blowing hot air+ammonia+vapor+co2 into the beds filtrate this air and be breathable, water, heat and fertilize the plants, and so on...

you can see it in googlemap china shandong provience shouguang

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

8 ай бұрын

Oh, thank you. That was amazing. (go to google maps) search as Zukalee said, and have the satellite layer enabled.

2007年的版本，已经有升级版本了

I just read on the BBC how some retailers in England are limiting sales of fresh fruit and vegetables.

@leafbranch1872

Жыл бұрын

The operating expenses of a greenhouse heated via natural gas ⛽ are so high that little fresh produce is being grown in the UK. Plus bad weather in north Africa & Spain. Perhaps the British should trial this technology. Thanks for sharing with us.

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

Жыл бұрын

@@leafbranch1872 Absolutely, the British should try this! You can check lowpower magazine on the web and their fruit wall article. Before the dream of cheap power for everybody seduced everyone, they were already 3/4 way to the Chinese greenhouse design about 150 years ago!

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

Жыл бұрын

@@leafbranch1872 I'm just a little warmer than the UK in winter. Yet right now, I am harvesting swiss chard and welsh onions from my little greenhouse. I went to secondary school with the owners of Castleruddery Organic Farm in Ireland. It's very cold in Wicklow but they have being putting in rows and rows of vegetables in poly tunnels since the start of the year, and some has even been planted out already! I think the problem in the UK is huge farming companies looking for handouts to buy more gas. The solution is to start from scratch and design everything with high power costs in mind. They are not going away!

@bacilluscereus1299

Жыл бұрын

@@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions You are spot on about the energy prices. So much geo-political uncertainty. Maybe we will see some changes when it comes to green houses in the northerly climes. Your Low-tech magazine article mentions this happening in the seventies, again due to energy costs.

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

Жыл бұрын

@@bacilluscereus1299 Yes, in uncertain times, everyone needs to conserve energy and to explore options for home grown food. I am not in any way linked to to low tech magazine. I'd love it if they did an article about the pulser pump or even the constriction airlift pump, but that's very unlikely. Another thing about my greenhouse is that it is "soiloponic" ( which is very similar to some hydroponic systems and its airlift pumps run on about 1.5 psi pressure (about 1000 Pa). BUT it could run on much lower pressure that that. Like 4000 Pa. Only problem is that there is nothing that low powered among air pumps so I am wasting a bit of energy by using a pump that is overpowered for what I am doing. I ran a nft hydroponics system by airlift pump for 2 summers, and it was about 4.5 watts for a 4 or 5 meter long run. It is just amazing how low we can take energy use if we try, but nobody is really trying :( I could do the greenhouse without soiloponics, but then I would have to water it by hand every day or plug into city water, and both those things have a cost which is a lot higher that how I do things.

Wonder why they are called chinese the design is centuries old european...

@Brians-Easy-Low-Tech-Solutions

7 ай бұрын

It isn't really centuries old. The Europeans used to have fruit walls facing south and perhaps a bit later, half glass greenhouses but then the industrial revolution happened, and cheap fuel and cheap glass and cheap refrigeration, and cheap transportation, seduced them away from those type of low energy input designs. I grew up in Ireland in the 1970's, plastic greenhouses were barely thought of then. We never could compete at that time. Meanwhile Holland had something like 12 ft of great soil under every field, and massive gas fields to heat their greenhouses, and a huge wealthy population within a day's travel of their greenhouses. It was hard to fail at greenhouses in that situation! So it suppressed everything else . A guy who I went to school with started Castleruddery Organic Farm in 1989 and made a great success of it. But they didn't use the Chinese greenhouse style (probably because they didn't know about it) and also because they are further north where there is less light in Winter. China was different, they had a huge urban population to feed, they didn't have much money to heat greenhouses, and they had to try to stop people leaving the farms and crowding the cities or there would be a revolution! So, unheated greenhouses providing food through the winter was a great option! Plus those greenhouses (even though the climate is very cold in winter) are a bit further south than holland or Ireland (meaning they get higher sun in winter). Fast forward to today, and they are supplying the world with special trusses to make special long span greenhouses. And even though their population is huge, they export fruit and veg to places like Canada early in the season.

@paulmaxwell8851

4 ай бұрын

The design is entirely Chinese and yet there are those who will try to argue that white Europeans did it first. Entirely untrue. This design is completely different from anything any European ever built, and miles ahead in efficiency. Here in Canada folks still insist gardening in a wintery climate isn't possible, yet we're doing it! A greenhouse based on these innovative Chinese ideas is next on the wish list here on the farm.