A Maltese and his experience

[Kristofer1990]

Very windy day in Malta today, We had strong gale force winds these past 2 weeks which put the newly restructured greenhouses to the test. They did well and no damage was sustained.
Plants are all waking up and last weekend I watered lightly the whole collection and some responded well by pushing new growth (M.Geometrizans).
Lots of flower bud are being pushed and grafting stocks are coming a long nicely. The wind should die down now and I can get some work done with the plants in the weekend.
On the other hand the light box is doing wonderfully well at germinating my seeds for this season.
I sowed some more species like C.Cinerea which have not sprouted yet but the D.Crystallophilus are slowly coming out of the seeds.
Some of these plants will be grafted to pereskiopsis to jumpstart them and have mature plants to produce seed in house.

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[Kristofer1990]

So it has been almost I month since I updated something here. Spring here has set in well and a lot of plants are flowering and all of the summer growing species are growing well. Put up the shade cloth today on the greenhouse. I did not cover it completely to allow some direct sunlight at a certain time of the day. Will post picture another time as it is dark right now.

The seedlings in the propagator box are growing well. some of them already look like proper miniature cacti.

Echinocereus moricalli viereckii

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Trichocereus pachanoi

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Discocactus crystallophilus

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I will be taking these out soon and place them in the greenhouse with the adult plants.

[Kristofer1990]

I have been very busy lately with work and a new project. I decided to build a main walk in greenhouse finally. The dimensions are 2x3 meters floor space and 2 meters in height. I am in still in the process of reinforcing it but plan to have it close and everything by this weekend. The main frame is made from pine wood and the covering will be a fibre sheet material. The roof will also have gutters on the sides to be able to collect water for the growing season. I hope you like the new project. Leave a comment if you think i should improve on the design somehow.

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[ElieEstephane]

That's a nice setup. Are you planning to use polycarbonate panels or greenhouse plastic film? If you are using film i'd add some wiring like cattle fencing or chicken wire to the roof so that the plastic doesn't collapse under rain.
I'd also add some horizontal wood bars all along the middle to improve the rigidity and stability of the frame.
I'm currently building something very similar but with a slanted roof as i'm worried heavy rains will collapse it.

[Kristofer1990]

Hi ElieEstephane,

a lot more wood has been added to the structure to make it stronger. The roof will have spots where the water will drain in to drums for harvesting.
Furthermore the shelving inside has been connected to the greenhouse and with those in place the sides have become rock solid. The material I used is a type of construction fiber sheet, it is turgid and usually long lasting. I will post a photo later on this week to show the finished product.
One issue i am having is heat as the greenhouse gets really hot and we are still in Spring! I will try to add a ventilator this week and see how it does.

[Kristofer1990]

So after 5 months of absence, I have finally returned to the forum with updates on the greenhouse and some plants.
The greenhouse is "finished" and has been up and running for a few months now. It's still has old bed sheets for shading which are unsightly but budget was tight so I had to make due with what I had. I have added lights to it so I can work at night when it was summer time, during the day the heat was unbearable. Also I had to add 50 mm drains to the roof as it was holding too much water (80-100l liters easy) so I was risking the whole thing collapsing. This will be it's first winter here and we will have too see how it fairs in gale force winds and downpour. To my luck, the strongest winds to hit the island which are usually NW, NE and SE and these are dampened by the surrounding buildings.
Here is the Greenhouse at night (yeah it's messy!)

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Below are 2 of the plants residing in it. Within this greenhouse the plants are doing a lot better than I expected in all honesty. With that said I did have problems with excess heat (55 Celsius minimum with the door closed).

Agave "Ohi raijin"

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M.Madinsoniorum

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[Kristofer1990]

Yesterday we had a good downpour here, it rained steadily for a good few hours. The drain system of the greenhouse worked as there is hardly any water on top of the roof. After the good clean the roof got, I will be now collecting the water and storing it in drums/bottles in anticipation of next season.
M.Luethyi grafted

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T.Alonsoi on own roots

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O.Dengerii on own roots

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[TimN]

Great looking plants! Keep us posted on your progress.

What is it that's keeping the heat in? Or is it normally 55C in Malta? I'm in Phoenix, AZ which regularly sees temps over 43C in the summer. My shade hut seldom get's much hotter than ambient with 50% shade cloth.

[Kristofer1990]

Unfortunately Malta is unbearably hot in summer, with the greenhouse door fully open I get about 45 Celsius in summer. As of next year I might try to add a ventilator to reduce the temps a bit more. I once this summer forgot to open my greenhouse door, as soon as I returned in the evening I realized that it was hot enough(Thermometer maxed out at 55) to have cooked about 70-100 A. Asterias seedlings.

[Kristofer1990]

Winter does not seem to want to come in Malta, we still have very warm days with temps in the greenhouse reaching close to 40 Celsius daily with the door open. The plants seem to love it as it is the perfect growing temperature for them. I'm hoping that most of the cacti will be going to sleep soon while the winter growers like Adromischus and Gasterias are starting to get geared. The below photos show seedlings which are the same ones I posted in March, this year I had a very good year with growing seedlings (my best so far) with lots of plants reaching decent sizes in a few months.
E.Viereckii moricalli

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T.Pachanoi

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Below is a Ferocactus species I have yet to find a name for. If anyone has any idea please let me know!

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[TimN]

Good stuff! Your plants look very nice. The seem to enjoy the fall/autumn weather!

[A_G_R]

Below is a Ferocactus species I have yet to find a name for. If anyone has any idea please let me know!
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That is a F herrerae brevispinus, a very nice one!

[Kristofer1990]

Thanks for the prompt reply A_G_R! Finally I can put the name tag for it.
Apart from cacti I am also very fond of succulent especially the slower growing smaller sized ones.
A genus in particular I love is Adromischus and yesterday I got in a new parcel with new plants! they are just stunning.
The picture does not do them justice but I only re potted them just now and it is 23:00.

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