You can set up bio-heating in your greenhouse and start growing organic vegetables and greens in your garden even in cold weather. Horse manure is a traditional greenhouse biofuel. However, the times when it was easy to get it in villages and towns are long gone. Most likely, you will not start a horse in your backyard to get manure for your greenhouse. So what can replace manure to heat your greenhouse? We will reveal several secrets of advanced farmers about waste-free production and bio-heating of soil in a greenhouse.
Unlocking the Power of Waste: How to Make Biofuel for Your Greenhouse from Scraps
How to Use Fallen Leaves?
Biofuel problems will not arise for those gardeners who, in addition to a corner with a vegetable garden, have a small garden. Thanks to this, you can stock up on valuable raw materials for the preparation of biofuel – tree leaves.
They begin to be harvested in the fall. You need to rake up enough fallen leaves so that the pile rises above the edge of your bed by about 15 in. If you do not have the required number of leaves at once, you can first collect them under a canopy. If you do not have a canopy, you should cover the collected leaves with film so that they do not get wet prematurely in the rain. Then from there you should transfer the raw materials to the greenhouse and compact them. After that, water them, mixing. You will need about 3 buckets of water per bed. To speed up the heating process, in addition to cold water, hot water is also used. Now you need to cover your beds with film. After a week, you need to open the beds and add a layer of soil on top – about 5 in. Such biofuel will provide heating for a month and a half.
Do not throw away your garbage
Every experienced farmer or gardener knows well that there is no garbage in the garden, and everything is used. And the waste can be used to heat greenhouses, among other things.
Under certain conditions, solid household waste, paper, and straw waste can heat up well. To do this, its humidity needs to be approximately 40-50%. To achieve this, some of the dry waste needs to be collected in a pile and watered. Then this wet raw material is mixed with the remains of dry plant waste – sawdust, straw, etc.
In order for the mass to heat up faster, it is sometimes necessary to beat it with a pitchfork. When the biothermal decomposition process starts, in a week or two the temperature of this mass should reach approximately 140 °F. This will ensure that the improvised biofuel is cleaned of helminth eggs and other pathogens. Just at this point, you need to start filling the beds of the greenhouse with the resulting biofuel. If you wait longer, the temperature will begin to drop. And so it will heat the greenhouse from the inside at the right level.
Tips of heating a greenhouse with biofuel in winter
When the biofuel reaches the desired temperature, it is time to start preparing the greenhouse beds. You should clear the soil in the greenhouse from snow and cover the bottom with dry material. Sawdust is a suitable raw material for this. To ensure that the compost combustion process does not stop, you can additionally insulate it with straw or film at the initial stage. Before filling the beds with soil, the biofuel is leveled and lightly sprinkled with lime. And it is recommended to sift the soil for the greenhouse before use.
For one and a half to two months, the temperature will be kept within 85-105 °F. This time can be used to grow seedlings in the greenhouse, as well as early vegetables, vitamin greens.
In addition to sawdust, paper, straw, you can use such useful waste as sunflower husks, kvass grounds, wool tow as biofuel. Liquid waste should be mixed with dry waste. It is good to add peat and manure to such mixtures. You should start preparing these materials in the fall. At the same time, they need to be protected from both rain and frost. You can keep the waste dry not only under awnings, but also in piles. In such shelters, you can keep leaves, sawdust, and manure.
