Greenhouses are being used to protect and grow sensitive plant. The art of building greenhouses started from the Roman era and up to now many plant lovers are addicted to having one of their own.
Greenhouses are usually made of glass or plastic. Inside these greenhouses, there is a build up of heat. This is due to the incoming radiation from the sun that warms the plants and the soil. Even so, the air is retained and stocked inside the house, regardless of its entire size.
Aside form having plastic or glass paneled greenhouses; you will also encounter commercial-types of glass greenhouses, which would generally feature high technology when it comes having the facilities for the fast production of vegetables and flowers. These kinds of glass-type greenhouses are full of equipment, which would cater to protecting, heating, cooling and lighting of the, lighting of the greenhouse. What made it more remarkable is that these processes can be done with the help of a computer. Thus, it is actually the computer who controls the operation inside the greenhouse.
The reason why glass is more suitable for greenhouses is due to its ability to transmit average light frequencies. Aside from this, it can trap the heat inside the greenhouse and heating everything inside it. This is also why there is a small window at the top portion of the greenhouse that needs to be open all the time. It acts as a channel to drop the temperature inside the greenhouse.
This amazing process is termed as “the principle of auto-vent”. This would pertain to the automatic cooling system. Hence, greenhouses usually work by trapping or capturing electromagnetic radiation and therefore stopping convection.
With regards to the origin of the greenhouse, it was believed to start during the Roman times. This was when a certain Roman emperor had a craving and appetite for cucumbers. Since that Roman emperor requests cucumber everyday, the gardener had set up his own artificial method of growing cucumbers. The artificial technique he used then is still similar to the greenhouse being used these days, except for the added technology.
In the thirteenth century, Italy started the building of greenhouses to grow their exotic plants. Different explorers brought these in those times. Originally, it was named as the “Giardini Batanici” or “Botanical Garden in English. Later on, word about this spread and reached the Netherlands up to England. However, it took some time to build the perfect greenhouse that is similar to the ones you can see today. Some of the problems encountered were the insufficiency of air and the flow of normal heat.
Moreover, during the ancient times, only rich countries can afford this system of grow plants called botanical gardens. Sometime later, other areas of the world became attuned to this concept and known universities started their experimentation to perfect this convenient phenomenon.
Furthermore, various ideas along certain parts of Europe even designed the building of these greenhouses during the seventeenth century. With this, they started to implement the use of technology in order to produce quality glasses for the greenhouses. Aside from this, their way of constructing these greenhouses somehow improved.
Then, during the nineteenth century, the first and the largest perfected greenhouses ever built. A good example of this type of greenhouse is the one found in England, which they called Kew Gardens. It is a Victorian inspired greenhouse with a so-called “geodesic dome” design. It was then introduced for production during the twentieth century.
Greenhouses, which are particularly, used for growing sensitive flowers, vegetables, some fruits as well tobacco plants are now very much demanded by plant lovers. There are also times where in gardeners would allow bumblebees inside their greenhouses on order to attain pollination. The process of pollination has actually helped greenhouse gardeners produce more plants.
The advantage of growing plants inside a greenhouse would be due ton the unique supply of heat maintained there as compared to the heat outside. Moreover, greenhouses were also built in order to keep the plants away from insects, pets, extreme heat and humidity. Plants inside these greenhouses are also irrigated which means there should be sufficient water provided for the plants inside the greenhouse.
Hence, the recent development of plastic surfaces and glazing for building greenhouses paved way for the construction of greenhouses that would selectively organize a transmittance of both inward bound solar radiation wavelengths as well as outgoing thermal IR (infra red) wavelengths.
The new materials for construction also aim to provide insulation so as to limit the conductive losses throughout the glazing process. This is also in order to better manage or control the growing environment inside the greenhouse. Researchers have conceptualized the stopping of convective heat loss found in given isolated systems and tries to work hard in order to achieve a more improved Infra Red absorption and insulation. This, on the other hand, aims to supplement the reduction of radiation and conductive energy loss.
Lastly, gardeners would generally use this greenhouse, along with its proven technique of laying out an additional Infra Red permeable plastic sheeting so as to attain an additional supply of heat from the water pies to the isolated parts of the greenhouse.
Prices of greenhouses vary, depending on the size and material used for its construction. This would range from $1,000 up to $2,700. There are also those who sell this on sale, which would range from $800 up to $2,600.
By: David H. Urmann
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