I really enjoy gardening. With my many full-time job and many side jobs I never have time to just sit. I find myself rushing from one thing to the next.
Gardening is something you can't rush. I normally spend most of my days off working in the garden. From pulling weeds to removing pest from my plants.
Since I live 2hrs south of Chicago, we get extremely bad springs. Days flip from 70 degree days to 20 degree nights and weeks of freezing days in April. I have lost so many seedling over the years due to me having to work and the fluctuation of the temperature. The regular 4 foot plastic greenhouse was my first option. So tried it and it worked well.
This worked well for plants that like extremely hot climates. This little thing reached temps of over 100 degrees, so I would have to leave the bottom cracked to vent some air.
I needed a way to regulate more air in, cool it down once it hits 75 degrees, and heats it up if it drops below 50 degrees.
The Arduino is a microcomputer that you can program to run functions and operate simple mechanics based on the requirement you set.
I started down a long road to getting my greenhouse running I replaced the plastic cloth with clear corrugated roofing. I vented the bottom for air to come in and another one at the top to release the hot air.
If you ever lived in Illinois you know the wind here is bad. So bad it ripped the all the plastic. Plus this material will dry-rote in one year so I had to plan something different. I figured I could use clear plastic corrugated roofing on all sides.
This would be similar to a real greenhouse with the amount of light and it would hold the humidity well.
After I assembled the hold thing and let it sit for a week I quickly realized the heat was to much and I needed to make the vents since the hard plastic doesn't let air in or release heat at all.
First I need to work on a way to auto water sprinkler system. I found the perfect thing.
"WayinTop Upgrade Automatic Irrigation DIY Kit Self Watering System"
This system runs off the Arduino and has four zones to water independently. The Greenhouse I needed build a watering system that is zoned based on the amount of water needed by level, not by the plant. Since I am doing seedling in this should work good.
Now to deal with temperature control. First I tried a grow light lamp. This did nothing. Since it's April our nights get down to 32 degrees. I need a way to heat the greenhouse at night, that is low powered but it needs to be able keep the temp above 55 degrees. I found some that should work.
Alright this thing is something else. I rewired an DC plug adapter to run off AC and it will be triggered by the temperature.
To release heat from the sun, I added fans that are operated by opening flaps with R/C servos to let air in the bottom and let heat out the top.
Now that I had the plans, I needed to build the codes to run it all.
If you aren't familiar with coding Arduino, you just find the executable you want and add it to the file, but sometimes it doesn't work and you have to figure out how to get it to work.
Ok the plan is for the doors to open and fans will turn on once the temp hits 90 degrees. Once the temp cools down to 60 the fans will turn off but the doors will stay open until the temp hits 50 degrees. The heat will turn on when the temp hits 45 degree and off one it hits 55 degrees. The water will turn on once per day automatically unless the zone is overly moist but if the soil becomes to dry the independent zone will turn on as needed. I did find a temp-controlled power outlet.
DIGITEN Wireless Temperature Controlled Outlet, Digital Plug-in Thermostat Outlet with Remote Control Built in Temp Sensor Heating & Cooling for A/C.
This will run the fans and the heat without any codes. Plug and play. Now that is done it time for testing the greenhouse. "BIG FAILURE". First the temp went from 75degrees to 115 degrees in less then 5 minutes. The code open the door but instantly closed the door. The fans would run for 3 seconds and then turn off and on the whole time. The heat never turned on and the water settings were set all wrong so this is were I started.
SO I found this dual temp control with a probe. So now I can control it with out the ardunio turning the heat and coolness of the whole thing.
This controls the flaps that open and close based on the temp.
This one blows the hot air out at the top.
This sucks cool air in from the bottom.
This one in on the top I will open on days that reach over 80 degrees continually prevent the hot air from collecting at the top.
For the cool nights I added at little heater on the lowest level, a heat pad on the second level, and I lamp on the also on the second level.
This little mister is the neatest thing. It helps the humidity stay up. Now I need seedlings and I'm off to the races. Hopefully it works out.
