Florida Greenhouse on Tennis Court

[Courtgreenhous]

Hey, it's great to be here and nice to meet everyone. This would be my first post and contribution to Tomatoville. I am into about my second year growing tomatoes and other vegetable produce. I have helped start an all organic community garden where I reside in NorthWest Florida where the humidity, heat and insects are loving life. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to grow hydroponically a couple years ago using Crop King's dutch bucket system with a couple hundred tomatoes split between a couple greenhouses in Virginia about a half hour from Blacksburg or Virginia Tech. The main greenhouse I worked in was adjacent to the living facility. Each morning walking downstairs yielded a beautiful gaze of the greenhouse from the kitchen windows. That year I had 50+ft plants and no deaths! Sadly, a little over a year I moved back to FL. Now I do not have much to spend on a greenhouse project so I just purchased a put it together model. My girlfriend helped me put it together, but somehow she managed to put some pieces in wrong so a little double timing was in order, lol. This is what I love to do and need advice from other experts here and look forward to discussing subjects. Right now I am enjoying the 100% humidity and 90+ degrees with about 55 tomatoes on the tennis court in the back yard. I know... tennis court wasn't exactly my first choice, but it has been working out *scratches head* somehow...

Tomatoes: Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Crimson Carmello, Costoluto, Persimmon, Sweet 100 Cherry, Black Cherry, Jelly Bean Red/Yellow Grape

[kath]

Hello, and welcome! Looks like you've come to the right place. You've got a great setup!

[Courtgreenhous]

Thank you Kath =).

[Cole_Robbie]

Nice plants. I see the irrigation tubing. Are you watering with straight water, or injecting fertilizer?

I think the mass of the tennis court below you, looks like concrete, can only help, by evening out your temp changes.

[Fiishergurl]

Awesome!! Looks like you have it down. I am new to this but I would have thought that would be way too much heat. But looking good!!

Ginny

[Courtgreenhous]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Nice plants. I see the irrigation tubing. Are you watering with straight water, or injecting fertilizer?

I think the mass of the tennis court below you, looks like concrete, can only help, by evening out your temp changes.

Ginny: Thank you. I installed a Drip Oasis drip irrigation machine for the 20 tomatoes. It has 4 preset options for watering and it does not meet all of the water demands. The soil mix is from scratch and have kept all of the tomatoes alive throughout their life cycle thus far by hand watering.

Cole_Robbie: The concrete tends to heats up on the outside about an average of 10 degrees hotter. Inside the greenhouse it's probably at least 5-10 degrees above the outside temperature which has lately been about 90 degrees.

[Brandon558]

Welcome... Awesome looking set up there.

[peppero]

Nice setup.

jon

[Worth1]

All of the tomatoes will probably be as hard as tennis balls.

No really, nice set up.

Worth

[Courtgreenhous]

Thank you Brandon558, peppero and Worth1.

Worth1 if they were as hard as tennis balls we could have tomato tennis. Sounds messy though.

Reminds me of that time when I was younger and for whatever reason me and a buddy stuck kerosine in a tennis ball and lit it on fire to hit...well it seemed like a good idea at the time.

[Courtgreenhous]

This is a couple shots of my endeavor up in Virginia working with hydroponic greenhouses. I came into the picture with tomatoes that looked sick and were on well water. The culprit was too much limestone in the water. I was using so much pH down! I then convinced the boss I worked for that we harvest rain water from the roof into a 1500 gallon tank underground made of cement that was already built in place. The water was reintroduced through a carbon filtration system and added to the 55gallon reservoir.

The ppm I think if I recall was like 1400+ with the well water and about 6-10ppm with rain water.

[ginger2778]

Nice job. The plants look really healthy. Welcome to this wonderful website, looks like we will probably be learning from you too!

If you want to come to Plantation the second Sat. in October, our 3 rd annual plant swap will be taking place, and this year we are having many special demos.
The details are in the Florida TAG thread on the homepage.

In any event, we are so glad you joined us. very nice pictures.

Marsha

[Courtgreenhous]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Nice job. The plants look really healthy. Welcome to this wonderful website, looks like we will probably be learning from you too!

If you want to come to Plantation the second Sat. in October, our 3 rd annual plant swap will be taking place, and this year we are having many special demos.
The details are in the Florida TAG thread on the homepage.

In any event, we are so glad you joined us. very nice pictures.

Marsha

Thanks for the invite. Ft Laud is a good bit away from us, but we (fiancé and I) are going to think about it. Would love to meet more like minded tomato growers in person. I had many nay sayers locally saying I could not produce tomatoes with night time temps above 70 and the daytime temps at 90 but I am doing it!

[Worth1]

I hate the word cant used in some ways.
I usually comes from people that give up too easily or with little imagination.

Nice work.

Worth

[Courtgreenhous]

1st Tom =)