Now that I have the greenhouse built, as a beginner, what sort of planters and irrigators should I use?

Sorry if I don't know the terminology yet. To be completely clear, I'm not looking for advice on plants. At least not yet. I'm looking for what sort of system I should put in in the way of growing.

Such as, do I just build square planters? Do I have grow bags sitting on the cement or on a flow tray? As a beginner, I am hesitant to go ebb and flow. What sort of growing medium?

Location: Carlsbad,CA
Greenhouse: Grand Gardener 2 (8x8) clear
Foundation: Cement slab
Venting: single roof
Water: yes
Power: yes
Ordered: 2nd roof vent, single floor vent, 2 automatic vent openers.

Andrew

In my 12 x 12 ft. greenhouse, I left plenty of walking room, just wide enough for a modest wheelbarrow. Used black pavers set in compacted sand. The beds for containers (tomatoes,peppers, etc. are sand. The center bed has a soil mix about 18 inches deep, and a twine trellis for pole beans and cucumbers.


The rear, south-facing wall has four black plastic tanks, passive heatsinks and also the source for watering plants. They get refilled with a garden hose at two-week intervals. The two shelves are for seedlings, herbs such as basil, parsley, oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, and marjoram. Also for baby greens in small planters.


Here's how it looks nearly ten years on.


I really enjoyed setting it up and seeing how it worked out. Hope you enjoy it as much.

That's beautiful, Subarctic!
It all depends on your weather conditions, ambition, available time and budget.
Some people put in a pre-designed and fabricated system with automatic watering, light- and heat-control. So spend as little money as possible and make everything themselves.
Mine is no particular system: we've been winging it since the start, about 8 years ago.


The blue barrels are filled with water and the cement floor is heated with water, circulating from its own propane-heated tank.
The boxes in the central island were later converted to simple hydroponic tanks. They do all right with basic greens, like kale and arugula, but my experiments with tomatoes, squash, peas and beans were a complete failure. This year, I'm keeping only one of the four tanks and putting bins with soil in the rest.
The following year, we expanded into an unheated, uninsulated addition.




Which I'm still using, but a little differently

Sorry but the answer really does depend upon what you plan to grow. Vegetable starting? Tropical plants? Orchids? ....

PS: to everyone, Carlsbad is in zone 10. The problem will be dissapating heat, not storing it.

My greenhouse was designed for Rocky Mountain weather: severe (-30F) cold in winter, bright sun and excess heat in summer, lots of strong winds. So the roof is 6-wall poly (R 3.8) and the sides are 3-wall. It's stick-built, since aluminum framed kits tend to rack in our strong winds and fall apart pretty quickly. A flat-plate solar collector on a 50% glycol loop sends heat through coils in a 400 gal. heat exchanger tank under the floor, with the warm water pumped through a radiant heating maze.

A zone 10 greenhouse needs a good passive ventilation setup, with low vents at the corners and rooftop exhausts that are oriented to the prevailing summer wind (to create low-pressure zones and draw air out). You could also get a thermostatically controlled fan and/or an evaporative cooler. But it's not much help to be drawing in 100°+ air.

For the hot months, you should also get reflective shadecloth, at least 60-70%, to stretch over the roof and sun-facing walls. It makes a big difference. Our days have gotten warmer and at times the passively-vented greenhouse is actually 5-10° cooler than the outside air.

I'm kind of a newbee too. Still figuring out what to do with my greenhouse.

Growbags have pluses and minuses. On the plus side they are easy to move, take little room when storing them and relatively cheap. On the minus side is you can expect to use more water and water more often as they dry out pretty readily. Last year I lined the sides of them with plastic bags and they still dried out pretty fast. I used mine 2 years and they are on hold this year. I went to regular raised garden beds outside. Not yet willing to part with them because they allow a lot of flexibility.

Pay attention to your sunshine. You may need shade in the summer.

Consider a rain barrel. I'm setting up one to use my greenhouse roof. My footprint is 8 X 12 = 48 sq ft. a 1/4" of rain should put about 12" of water in my 50 gallon barrel.

Keep it flexible. You'll want a potting table and maybe a table for plants. Your uses will change over time.

We have a little room, where the exercise equipment is no longer used, off the main greenhouse. It's very useful for storage of pots, tools, seeds and materials. I've also kept the table at each end clear for my own use and Sammy cat's, respectively. The long bench along the taller side now has a nursery tent on it for when the seedlings in the hatchery (in the house) are big enough to pot, but still tender. It's fitted with heating pads and grow-lights. Worked a charm in this past, its first winter. When the plants outgrow the tent and need transplanting to 4" pots, they come out onto the bench-top.

This way, I could keep cohorts coming at about 3-month intervals... in theory.
Really, I only do an early planting of tomatoes, peppers and cucurbits for the unheated side of the greenhouse and a smaller late one for outdoors. This year, outdoors was inhospitable, so everything but a couple of tomatoes, tomatillos, peas, sunflowers and strawberries is inside. And it's damn crowded!

I put four 80-gal. black plastic tanks on the southfacing wall of my greenhouse, as a passive heatsink and also a source of water for the plants.


The original plan was to funnel rainwater collected from the roof gutters to the tanks, but I noticed that magpies were carrying dog poop up on the garage roof to pick it apart. Didn't really want all that dog poop draining to the tanks, where the bacteria would bloom in the warm (65-70°F) water: dog poop soup.

So I fill the heatsink/watering tanks with the garden hose.

subarctic said:
So I fill the heatsink/watering tanks with the garden hose.

That seems like a very good decision, Chip!

Other than the minor technicality of the magpies and dog poop, though, I think you have a great setup with those tanks Where did you get them - or maybe I should ask what are they actually called (or normally used for)?

I was wondering the same thing. I've never seen any like that. You have a great set-up!

looks like something military. All I have is ordinary blue plastic barrels.

The tanks are Aquadra Systems 75 gal modular rainwater catchment tanks, bought from Tank Depot in 2009. No idea whether they're still available or the price. The aspects that appealed to me were the color, wall mounting, and the dimensions. When the sun is low, in winter, they typically gain about 10-15°F from sunlight and radiate the same amount each night.

Thanks, Chip - I agree, the wall-mounting aspect is a big plus! Chances are I won't end up installing something like that, but it sure seems like a great idea

I was happy to find the tank depot online. We need more rainwater catchment tanks and they have some great ones. I like the cisterns that can be buried.