Greenhouse Questions

The comment section on my last post about winter eggs was more interesting than the post itself!  Thank you all for all the good ideas and methods from all over.  Climates differ so much and it is so interesting to see how people cope with issues (like predators and weather) in their own locale.

Summer hens.

I wanted to answer a couple of questions from the comments and maybe clarify just how we use our greenhouses, since I don’t want to lead anyone astray while winter garden/farmstead planning is in season.  It’s pretty easy to get the wrong idea from just blog posts, or lack of information contained in said blog posts.  I suffer from the thinking that stating the obvious is boring to write about and therefore for you to read about.  I forget that sometimes the “obvious” is not really all that obvious.  Mea culpa.

First order of business – comments.

Anna in BC wanted to know if our chicken greenhouse is damp?  No, it isn’t except where it leaks.  We use straw, and add straw daily in wet or soiled areas.  In the winter, one vent is open for ventilation and on sunny or warm days (above freezing) the personnel door is open for more ventilation.  The door is closed at night to deter predators…  The old axiom, “if you smell manure, add carbon,” is the best rule of thumb to use no matter how deep your bedding is.  Hay doesn’t offer as much carbon and caps easier than straw or sawdust.  I start out with about 8″ of sawdust, straw, leaves and what-have-you and go from there as winter progresses.    For summer time use, I still add bedding as needed and add shade cloth on the south end.  All four vents are open, and both personnel doors are kept open at all times.

Is this a chicken dream house?  Probably not.  As chickens they have no choice or way to reason that if they get to go free, while they may be free and able to provide the best eggs on earth, their life span is probably about 2 weeks to 1 month in my location.  Sad but true, so it’s a choice we have made.  I’m not running a rescue operation, although I guess my friends who take my 18 month old hens are running a rescue operation, as they are rescuing my “old” hens from me!

Tammy wanted to know if I could recommend a book about different uses of greenhouses.  I have to say I have don’t know of any that explore more than just using the space for growing.  But as a simple building that is easy to construct, usually doesn’t require permitting, and it versatile on any type of homestead, I can’t think of a more useful type of building.  My DH said when we built our first one for market growing, that we would end up using it for something else.  He was right.  We grew mesclun, morphed in chickens and pigs and are now using the space for growing vegetables again.  All good uses, and easy to switch from one to another in a hoophouse.

So, here’s the skinny on our greenhouses – we have one large 30′ x 72′ semi-gable, and two smaller 20′ x 20′ semi-quonset greenhouses.   The large one is used for season extension of cool season hardy vegetables, and warm season crops like tomatoes and peppers.  Despite our Mediterranean type summers, text-book heat units are a push here in the Pacific Northwest.  Hoophouses help bring in a reliable  harvest for home gardeners and farmers alike.

As for our two smaller greenhouses, they are left over from our egg and turkey operation, in which we utilized them as brooders for chicks and poults.  We found that the natural light, and subsequent solar heat really was the best way for us to raise large quantities of chicks without too much infrastructure like a stick built building, which require more lighting and heat.  I still brood chicks in one, and use the other one for my mature hens.  I wrote about our present chick raising and plant starting uses in one of our small hoophouses here.

One thing we don’t do is mix chickens and human food at the same time with the only exception being baby plants and baby chicks.  Why is that?  Hens scratching all that fecal matter into the bedding creates fecal dust that settles on everything.  Many times it isn’t even discernible to the eye, but adding that to salad greens, or other harvest ready foodstuffs isn’t a good idea.  So think rotation, just like in your garden.  Animals, and food are separate crops and while it’s OK to follow animals with crops, it’s not safe to house animals and harvestable crops at the same time.

I’m not saying rush out and build yourself a hoophouse, but if you have one or want to build one, you can really make them pay for themselves in a season or two, either with more food for your family, plants or animals to sell, or as a place to gather winter manure  from the livestock you have.  Just add carbon and you have the makings for the best garden or pasture compost you can think of.

The best tip I can think of, is build as big as you can afford, it is still a roof or potential growing space and it is pretty easy to fill it up.

Warm and cool season crops at the same time.