Benefits of Stone/brick Wall

[dcarch]

Originally Posted by IMISSCOLO

That brick/stone wall will be your friend. It will collect heat during the day and release at night!!!

Has anyone done a side-by-side comparison?
(By now you may realize my bad habit of asking obvious questions )

1. While stonewalls collect heat in the daytime and warns up surrounding areas in the night, doesn’t this effect cancel each other out? That in the cool seasons it also deprives warmth in the daytime?
2. All stonewalls have deep foundations, which by definition limits the root growth by half.
3. The walls will always limit sunlight hours.

dcarch

[greggf]

Good questions!

I plant 4 to 7 tomato plants along a south-facing garage wall. The foundation is poured cement, the wall is vinyl siding (in a cedar color - sort of a dark salmon).

Then I plant X number of plants just beyond these, in the regular vegetable garden. The garden starts about, oh I don't know, maybe ten feet beyond the foundation bed.

The plants along the south-facing garden wall bear fruit about two weeks earlier than those in the garden, year after year, no matter what the weather.

I think the roots issue is no issue. Up here the plants will happily forego root growth (by the way, aren't you the guy with the deep hole fetish and the robust posthole digger? ) in order to get a little heat.

Maybe growing along a wall would roast tomato plants in Houston or even the Hudson Valley............?

=gregg=

[sirtanon]

I think the heat retention will always occur, even in cooler months, because the wall gets its heat from the sunlight, not the ambient air.. and if it's a free-standing wall, it get it on both sides.

I for one believe they definitely help. When we had our hard freeze here in Phoenix (only down to 25 or so, but it was enough to kill just about everything) every tomato plant I had growing was killed.. EXCEPT for three that were planted about 10 inches from one of our exterior brick walls bordering our backyard.. They looked a bit ragged, but they have sprung back and are doing great now.

An argument for planting near walls? I think so.

[dcarch]

Originally Posted by greggf

--------I think the roots issue is no issue. Up here the plants will happily forego root growth (by the way, aren't you the guy with the deep hole fetish and the robust posthole digger? ) ------------------
=gregg=

BTW, have I told you about my Dwarf fetish, Stump fetish, deep soak fetish -----?

dcarch