Fanboy Builds a Greenhouse

[Pigskin Fanboy]

@Pigskin Fanboy - How have you been growfriend? Are you up and running with the greenhouse this year?

Thanks for checking on me !! I need all the prayers and friends I can find.

A little update just to get caught up with everyone ;
It’s been a whirlwind of things going on since March here at the compound. I think I mentioned it somewhere in a post but my sweet wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Unfortunately it’s very aggressive, but thankfully they caught it early, are very thorough and working hard to get rid of it. We are seeing shrinkage in the tumor already, to the point they can’t find it on a physical examination. They are going to get imaging soon and we are on treatment 4 of 6 but they seem to drag her down more after each and the “funk” lasts longer. Each treatment is almost an all day process and I go hang out with her until she kicks me out and then I hang at the casino around the corner until she’s done with her “nap” and ready to go. Then of course there’s major surgeries coming up and a long process to come after that. We are trying to stay positive and I try to get her out to do things she enjoys when she feels like it.
Our last son graduated a couple weeks ago, his soccer team made it to the state quarterfinals, so it wasn’t a bad way to finish out his HS soccer. They lost a 1-1 tie on Penalty Kicks after 3 OT’s . We’ve been running crazy for these tournaments and he actually scored the only goal to win the region championship to get to the state level , 26 seconds into the 3rd 5min overtime period. Was very exciting for everyone!
The baseball team plays for the state championship finals tomorrow so we will be on the road early to catch that and hopefully cheer the boys on to another championship ring as long as Momma is feeling up to the trip !!
The grow room is doing well and almost on automatic nowadays it seems lol. I’ve moved the entire grow operation to a much larger room and been organizing and setting everything up in there for the last week or so.
I’ve taken on a new venture with trying to grow mushrooms (white button or similar for cooking) inside a spare tent and I’m going to be posting tons of questions about that in the mushroom sections if that’s allowed, soon as I can get my head around it lol. I haven’t actually done anything with it yet except I set up a stainless steel rack in the tent and added some tubs/flats, I actually made my own substrate after sterilization process today and filled them up. I’ll try and decide which route to go with them tomorrow night.
The greenhouse is full of a variety of plants it’s not 100% set up for the year yet but everything’s doing well in there and seem to be thriving. I still have to re install the shade cloth since it’s starting to get warm again. Last winter one of my pvc pipes froze and cracked even after draining the system so I’m working on a drain system that will be at the lowest point in the water lines to make it easier to get all the water out before it freezes this year.
The exhaust fan is still running strong in there and actually sucks my door shut tight when it’s running. I still haven’t figured out a way to wire up a temperature controller to the 12vdc exhaust fan. That’s been an issue from the start. I’m almost positive the fan is a digital signal since it won’t run if I hook it directly to a 12v battery. So I may need to come up with a different approach but for now it’s doing a good job of moving a lot of air fast. Solar system is still running strong. Going to build a stand to set the battery bank on and get the tub they are in off the ground level.
I’ve got tomatoes, lots of strawberries, cabbage, some roses, squash and a bunch of different houseplants and succulents. I’ve been hitting up and friends and family for various cuttings from their houseplants and have a ton of seeds still that I haven’t tried yet .
I want to get some cannabis in there soon but my inside JeanO’s grow has been doing so well I haven’t wanted to move them outside. House smells amazing too I’ll probably just start my next grow early in there, so I can sneak In another grow before it gets cold. I actually despise trimming so I need to come up with an acceptable way to trim the buds much easier than scissors only. I’m sure I’m not the only one but I’m open to any and all suggestions to automate that process as soon as possible lol. Since the sons out of school and sports I’m not as worried about keeping my legal grow under wraps as much nowadays and probably will get more outside stuff going this year also.

Anyways as you can see I got a lot keeping me busy, I haven’t tried taking on any G&S lately because I don’t wanna get in a situation I won’t be able to give them all the attention the vendors deserve.
I’ll try to make it a priority to get in there and organize a little and post some photos of how things are going/growing so far.
Thank you so much for taking the time to check on me and the greenhouse progress. I’ll try and do better with regular updates.
Hope all is well with you and yours for sure !!!

 

[DCLXVI]

Well that's some ups and downs isn't it? Hope your wife makes it through treatment and recovery. Canna has some wonderful properties for helping fight the side effects of chemo. Hence my entire reason I started growing. Don't know if she partakes but edibles can really help if she isn't a smoker.

That said, your vent fan issue. I hate to send you after more parts to buy but..... Have you looked into the ACInfinity greenhouse fans? The use the same controllers as their indoor grow gear. Unless you are trying to run the whole thing on 12v battery and solar.

AC Infinity

Create smart growing systems with advanced components like grow tents, fans, LED lights, and UIS™ controllers.

acinfinity.com

 

[JP1]

Good luck to you and the wife! How about an inkbird for the temp controller? They work great. Just set the max temp and plug the fan into the cooling side

 

[Pigskin Fanboy]

Good luck to you and the wife! How about an inkbird for the temp controller? They work great. Just set the max temp and plug the fan into the cooling side
View attachment 1602266

I’ve got quite a few of those but I was hoping to make it all DC voltage since the fan I have is DC. I could run one off of the inverter but I’d have to buy a new AC voltage fan and mount it in the wall where this one’s at. Which may ultimately be the easier route anyways. It would also make it wifi controllable from anywhere so that probably is what I will do. Makes sense after typing it all out lol. I want total control in the grow room and hopefully the greenhouse as well so it makes sense just to use one of my inkbird or BN link controllers in there and use the inverter. I’ll start looking for a AC Voltage attic fan, that hopefully has close to the same dimensions or bigger (since I already cut the hole) with a speed controller and just use the Inkbird to automate it.

Well that's some ups and downs isn't it? Hope your wife makes it through treatment and recovery. Canna has some wonderful properties for helping fight the side effects of chemo. Hence my entire reason I started growing. Don't know if she partakes but edibles can really help if she isn't a smoker.

That said, your vent fan issue. I hate to send you after more parts to buy but..... Have you looked into the ACInfinity greenhouse fans? The use the same controllers as their indoor grow gear. Unless you are trying to run the whole thing on 12v battery and solar.

AC Infinity

Create smart growing systems with advanced components like grow tents, fans, LED lights, and UIS™ controllers.

acinfinity.com

Yeah that may be a route also now. I’ve got plenty of their In-line fan systems and not even sure how but ended up with an extra controller . All the ones I have are the Bluetooth version though I’ll try and see which route will save me some $$ and see if they have WiFi available or just use a inkbird controller with their fan.

 

[JP1]

We have an ac infinity t12 fan with the flaps in our 9x18 greenhouse and it works great

 

[Pigskin Fanboy]

Howdy y’all. Have a small update on the greenhouse. Started out early this morning and completely emptied it out, organized all the junk I had stored under the tables and finished up the water supply line from outside.
Of course I added in another shut off valve and a coupler to I can remove it in the winter and store it away until next spring. I guess everything’s still a work in progress and as long as I can use it it’s work for now lol.

Still not too happy with the faucet mounting but I’ll have to come up with a different mounting plate/board to keep the faucet bolted solid to the wall.

Now I’ll hook the 12vdc on-demand pump to the switch on the solar controller and whenever I’m ready to pump some water from the rain barrels it will start pumping as soon as I pull the handle on the sprayer.



I also added in a solar powered watering system that has a timer. Right now I have it set up for 10 plants , 5 minutes on every 24hours. I’ve got more drippers and line I can use but I ran out of T’s lol.

My son and I got the shade cloth out and installed today. Probably should have done that a month ago.
While I was working in there it was 96.6 and after installing the shade cloth it dropped to 85.4. Big rains coming for the next 5-6 days so it should be a good test of the entire system.

Thanks for hanging with me and all the interest in the greenhouse stuff I’ll try to get some more work done tomorrow and over the weekend in there, I have some bugs eating my cabbage on the back porch and need to fix that and get it back in the greenhouse lol.

 

[Pigskin Fanboy]

Another small greenhouse update. The solar powered watering system seems to be working great, so far. I was measuring the amount of water it used at each scheduled watering and with a 1gal container I can get 3 days out of it. It’s currently set on 5min every 24hrs. It’s kinda weird because I can turn it off and back on at say 3:15pm and then go out the next day at 3:10pm and sit there and wait on it to kick on and it doesn’t kick on exactly at 3:15. Not sure why, the instructions are kinda strange but I went back inside the house and I can periodically walk out on the back porch and see the container from my porch and see that the water level is lower. I removed the one gallon bucket and installed a plastic drawer we were throwing away from one of those cheap plastic dressers you can buy. It holds maybe 3gal and I can still see it from the porch. I now have 12 plants in the system and bought an upgrade type kit with much more water line and dozens of T’s and other various connectors and even some different types of spray nozzles and drip nozzles. I’m sitting in the parking lot while the better half does her last chemo nap and thought I’d update. I’ll add some more photos tonight when I get home.
I also brought out a Vivosun 4” exhaust fan I’ve not been using and connected it to an inkbird WiFi controller. I’ve got the heat set to 80f max before it kicks on. I’m powering it with the inverter and the fan has a speed controller on it. It will draw 60w at full speed, 40w at medium speed and 20w at low fan speed. I’m trying to get an idea of the solar system can keep up with it and how long it can go without any major sunlight recharging the system.
I’ve also got this rainpoint system I’ve had for awhile now that I may incorporate somewhere. It can be plugged in to the USB charging port of the inverter.
My RV pump is installed and works great I’ve got about 10’ of hose connected to it and looking for just the right sprayer to attach to the hose and a good way of organizing the hose on the wall.

 

[DCLXVI]

Ah the test and tune phase! Nice progress overall.