Hi everyone! (And a portable greenhouse question)

[LordJoshaeus]

I'm new to this forum but not necessarily to gardening...I currently have several houseplants being grown with passive hydroponics, several densely planted aquariums, and I have ambitions for growing vegetables hydroponically this year and having a shallow pond outside. With such ambitious plans, I am going to need advice...thanks in advance for what advice you offer

Anyhow...let's get down to my first question! I was going to use a portable greenhouse over my pond (a little 35 gallon, 38.5" wide, and 15" round container) and was wondering...would that really be effective? Roughly how much of an air temperature increase could I expect from a greenhouse? Thanks

 

[Sean Regan]

I'm new to this forum but not necessarily to gardening...I currently have several houseplants being grown with passive hydroponics, several densely planted aquariums, and I have ambitions for growing vegetables hydroponically this year and having a shallow pond outside. With such ambitious plans, I am going to need advice...thanks in advance for what advice you offer

Anyhow...let's get down to my first question! I was going to use a portable greenhouse over my pond (a little 35 gallon, 38.5" wide, and 15" round container) and was wondering...would that really be effective? Roughly how much of an air temperature increase could I expect from a greenhouse? Thanks

Hi and welcome.

My first thoughts on a greenhouse that size is that you'd get a huge fluctuations in temperatures, which could be difficult to control

 

[LordJoshaeus]

Hi and welcome.

My first thoughts on a greenhouse that size is that you'd get a huge fluctuations in temperatures, which could be difficult to control

Would it be improved if I added some kind of heat sink? Could I add a useful heat sink to such a small greenhouse?

 

[NigelJ]

You don't say how big a greenhouse you want to put around the water container. The 35gallon water container will act as something of a heat sink and mitigate temperature fluctuations. It will help if you can put the whole structure out of the wind.
I would think that in Zone 5 the whole pond freezes solid it will do that even in the proposed greenhouse.
Yes you could put more water containers in the greenhouse to act as further heatsink capacity, obviously at the expense of growing space.

 

[LordJoshaeus]

You don't say how big a greenhouse you want to put around the water container. The 35gallon water container will act as something of a heat sink and mitigate temperature fluctuations. It will help if you can put the whole structure out of the wind.
I would think that in Zone 5 the whole pond freezes solid it will do that even in the proposed greenhouse.
Yes you could put more water containers in the greenhouse to act as further heatsink capacity, obviously at the expense of growing space.

I just wanted the greenhouse during the warmer months...as winter approached I would most likely tear the pond down. The greenhouse could not be larger than 4*4 ft floorplan. Side note...is there any way I could protect the greenhouse from unplanned toddlers breaking in and being hurt in the 'pond'? There's a lot of little kids in the neighborhood and I would never forgive myself if my pond killed one of them.