Hello, and welcome to my greenhouse!
It's been 12 days since I wrote the last post about my work in the greenhouse preparing for winter. If you would like to read that post, just follow this link.
@amberyooper/garden-journal-end-of-season-greenhouse-work-part-2
Today was one of those days where I woke up early after not sleeping well all night. I got up to discover that it had snowed overnight. Normally, by this time of year we have several inches of snow, but not this year. It's only been the past few days where the daytime temperature has been below freezing, so up to now, there hasn't been any snow on the ground. We did get a few inches of snow at the end of October, but it melted away within about a week.
I took a picture when I first went outside today. It was overcast, so it wasn't very bright outside, even with the fresh snow.
There were some fresh rabbit tracks in the yard, so, of course, I took a picture. I think the rabbit was looking for a place to get through the fence.
The snow on the greenhouse roof wasn't very thick, I think it snowed a bit less than an inch.
It's been cold enough at night to form ice on the surface of the winter pond fish tank in the greenhouse. It wasn't completely frozen over because of the moving water from the filter pump.
It was a mild day, just above freezing outside, so I decided to work on getting more insulation around the fish tank and get it set up for the cold weather. I started a fire in the woodstove in the greenhouse to warm it up a bit to make it more comfortable to work out there. Over the course of the afternoon, I managed to get the temperature up to about 50 degrees F, which is pretty good with all the air leaks in the greenhouse.
I had to move some stuff out of the way to get to the fish tank because I moved it there to get it out of the way for something else I was doing out there a few days ago. Once I was able to get to the tank, I uncovered the algae killer and it's plumbing to be able to remove it. I can't leave it hooked up all winter because the water would freeze in the lines. The plumbing from the algae killer is attached to the filter pump, and the water is pumped through the algae killer and then back into the tank.
Once I got the algae killer unhooked from the plumbing, drained, and moved, I pulled the filter pump out of the tank. The pump is inside the filter box.
Once I had that out of the way, I was able to start on the added insulation. I took the clamp off my big clamp lamp and set it on 2 pieces of aluminum angle to hold it above the water. The incandescent light bulb provides a bit of heat to the water to help keep it from freezing. There's only a 60 watt bulb in the lamp right now, I need to get a higher wattage bulb for more heat.
I also put my small pond filter pump into the tank to circulate the water. The plumbing for that stays in the tank, so it won't freeze unless the tank does.
Once I had the light and pump set up, I covered up as much of the tank as I had foam board insulation for. Because the corners of the tank are rounded and the insulation board is not bendable, I stuffed plastic bags with used bubble wrap in the corners to add a bit more insulation and to fill the gaps as much as I could. I could probably use more insulation on the side of the tank, but this will be good enough for now. I will need to get more insulation board if I want to add more around the tank.
When I put the insulation around the light, I make sure it isn't touching the reflector The aluminum tends to get warm, and I don't want to take a chance on the foam melting from the heat. It's better to be cautious.
It will be interesting to see if my pond plant survives the winter this way. The roots are in the water, so hopefully that will help.
One more picture. My furry helper was out in the greenhouse investigating what I was doing, and she stood still long enough for a picture.
That's all I have for this post, thanks for stopping by to check it out!
