An enclosed growing space combined with focused sunlight creates an ideal growing space.
Humidity, however, can often be an enemy in such situations. Condensation is a common by-product in greenhouses, as plants release moisture back into the air — especially when cold temperatures batter the greenhouse exterior.
Humidity in a greenhouse is necessary, but controlling it is crucial to preventing plant stress and negative side effects like fungus, mold, or mildew.
Air circulation is essential to controlling ambient moisture, but there are several ways to manage it.
- Managing Greenhouse Humidity: Monitoring exterior conditions like rain, wind, temperature, and humidity are critical since it directly impacts the greenhouse conditions.
- Vents: Releasing heat from your greenhouse using roof vents is an economical, passive method for cooling.
- Fans: There are two options for utilizing fans to control humidity – horizontal air flow fans and extraction fans.
- Shades: Deploying shades can significantly impact humidity levels inside your greenhouse, as it affects the ambient temperature. Utilizing solar energy can assist in recouping costs, and the type of shade you choose can also impact how long it’ll take to cool down or heat up the space.
- Heating: Radiant heating is popular with greenhouses since it uses a boiler to provide heat through steam in metal pipes that emit heat throughout the space.
- Wet Walls: Another way to impact temperatures in a greenhouse is by using wet walls, an active cooling method. A water collection system uses a gutter at the top of walls, trickles down, and is collected at the bottom. Once collected, the water is put through a filtration system and recirculated.
- Fogging: Fogging or misting is an easy way to increase humidity levels inside your greenhouse. The outside temperature impacts the need and frequency of misting or fogging; combining this method with shades to reach optimal levels is a relatively easy way to find the goldilocks zone.
