The Perfect Gift For A Gardener, A Heat Sink

In front of my house a standard hydrangea  with my
rooster sculpture.

     I am happiest when I am in my gardens.  In my ornamental garden I am pleased with the variety of plants that I have accumulated over time.  They spell out who I am.  After all,  they are an acummulation of my personal choices, gifts by aquaintances and they represent a passion that I've followed for quite some time.  If you walk through my garden you are invited to get to know a part of me.  I can tell you what grower I got the Dendranthema "Sheffield Pink" from or where I purchased the tree-like, white-blooming, perennial Hibiscus.  I will show you the gifts that people have shared with me over the years and when plants get big enough, I will divide a piece off to share with my fellow gardening friends. 

Perennials line the walk down to
the hoop house.

      My family moved to Monkton when I was five years old.  My dad grew up on a dairy farm but went to work as an engineer for IBM.  When I was five he must of heard the call from the land, because he left IBM and moved our family to the country.  My parents purchased an apple orchard.  And along with the apples there were several acres of gardens to tend to.  They provided goods for sale at the apple orchard.  Squash, potatoes, corn and various other vegetable crops.  I can recall many summer days wielding a hoe to weed the orchard's large vegetable patches, it was hard work but really rewarding. 

Me holding a bucket of wild blueberries.
Some of the hardest working, common
perennials behind me.

      Once I entered the workforce I gravitated towards ornamental gardening.  The apple didn't fall far from the tree as they say.  But in choosing ornamental gardening, I was developing a passion that was mine---It wasn't apples and it wasn't vegetables.  That was what my family did.  I  struck out to define who I would become.  And I had a natural abiltiy to work in the soil.  I had been doing it from an early age and it made sense to me. 

     Once I reached adulthood and many years of gardening in the same spot at my home in Monkton, I discovered that you can only plant and rearrange so many ornamentals X number of times.  I was starting to get panicky that I was collecting more plants then I had time or desire to take care of.  I continunued to work in the nursery business and couldn't stop collecting plants.  I had an addiction.  It took all of my weekends to maintain the yard.  And I wasn't gardening on that large of a scale either.  Rob would want to hike and I'd say, "No I need to plant this plant, weed this, or water the gardens."

     And in a way that seems to be cyclical we tend to return to where we started.  Maybe I missed those childhood days of wielding a hoe?  Or perhaps I wanted to plant something I could eat and not just enjoy for its beauty.  My passion for perennial gardens has taken a backseat as I have a renewed  love for vegetable gardening.  In the past few years Rob and I have built a gorgeous fenced in veggie garden and small hoop house. We both agree that living a little bit off the land is important to us.  I still have lovely ornamental gardens but I don't let them rule me.  I love beautiful colors, textures and form, something that can be obtained in the ornamental garden and as I'm starting to discover can also happen in the vegetable garden!

Raised bed gardens with Rob's
hops trellis in the background.

     But ask me and I will tell you, my current obsession is the vegetable gardens, and more so, the hoop house and extending the growing season in our short, zone 4, growing season.  You've probably heard me talk about Elliot Coleman and it is through this Maine gardener that I've been inspired to extend my growing of crops into the winter months in a hoop house. 

Rob in the hoop house amidst the leafy greens.  Remay 
is the white cloth behind him to the left. 

               A hoop house is a greenhouse like structure that doesn't require heat.  And if you plan on gardening into the winter months like I do, you will soon learn that the hoop house doesn't stay much warmer then outside of it during non-daylight hours.  I will use garden blankets and remay (a garden fabric that allows some sunlight and air to pass through it while acting like a layer of insulation atop my plants).   I kept wondering how I could keep my indoor garden growing for as long as possible.  Because at some point without sufficient heat, the produce will stop growing.  No growth, no salad for me!  I wanted more heat but I want to avoid the added expense of using any form of electricty or heating implements.  My goal is to do this on the cheap. 

     I've been researching how to keep my hoop house a little warmer using a heat sink, basically a plastic barrel filled with water that you place inside your growing environment.  In theory the water will heat up during the day and at night it will release that heat back into the air.  It might help add a couple of degrees to the night time temperature, and although that may not seem significent, it might be all that is needed to eek a little bit extra out of my plantings.  It's time for another science experiment, after all this hoop house has become quite the entertainment source for me these days.  Lucky for me I was able to obtain a barrel from my neighbors.  It was blue, and for maximum heat absorbtion a better color would be black.

      My partner, Rob, handed me all the supplies to remedy that situation. And this is what I did to turn my blue plastic barrel into a black one:

•  Sanded the barrel to rough up the surface so paint would adhere
• Cleaned the sanding residue and any dirt off with ammonia
• Applied spray primer 



Heat sink in place and ready to go to work!

• Sprayed on a coat of black paint. 

     I now have a black barrel ready to fill with water.  Once I convince Rob to help me create a cover for it (to decrease evaporation) and build a wooden stand that it can sit on, it will be moved into place in the hoophouse.  This heat sink will be moved outside during the summer months to become a rain barrel.  I will refit it with a screened cover and collect rain to water my gardens.

     I'm not sure that the heat sink is the perfect gift for this gardener, but I will let you know the results once I've given it a fair trial here at Chicken Hill Gardens!