 | Dysviz is a 61 year old guy from Okanagan, British Columbia, Canada. |
- Jul 2, 8:39am
- Paramananda's greenhouse provides two other utilities (in keeping with her desire for multiple functions). Her clothes dryer vents directly into the space, thus providing needed humidity for the plants and allowing the heat to be recaptured by the circulating system. Also there is an enormous Russian stove in the space. These stoves are made with a huge amount of mass to store heat, and are amazingly efficient. Actually Paramananda says that this is one the few things she would change about her design, if she were to start again. In this climate where the weather fluctuates so rapidly, it is hard to know when to fire up her stove because it can have an effect some 24 hours after using it. She says a better choice for this climate would be a simple cast iron wood stove, that gives off heat much more immediately, and cools down more quickly. She typically only fires up the Russian stove about ten times a year.
While I was visiting Paramananda, I asked how she deals with the bane of all indoor gardeners: white flies and aphids. With white flies, she will vacuum up as many as possible, and then spray the affected plants with a mix of one teaspoon of liquid detergent in a pint of water. Also she makes little stakes that hold bright yellow cards (2"X4") that are smeared with petroleum jelly. The white flies can't resist landing on the yellow, and then they get stuck there. For aphids (and also white flies), her strategy is to spray them with "Bioneem", made from the seeds of the Neem tree. This must be done every 7 days for five or six weeks, in order to interrupt their life cycle. Bioneem is available from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply (888-784-1722 or groworganic.com [groworganic.com] ). Another remedy for these pests that I recently read about is to spay the affected plants with a fine mist of very hot water (about 140 degrees F.) for several seconds. I turned my water heater up to its hottest setting and used a fine spay nozzle on a garden hose to spray several chard and kale plants. The plants themselves showed no signs of damage from this treatment, and time will tell whether the aphids survived.
There are many books with specific designs for attached solar greenhouses. I encourage you to consider adding one to your house plans, or to your existing house. It will pay for itself many times over with food, heat and pleasure.
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