Here’s the photo’s, pretty self explanatory but I’ll try to help a bit: #3830 Chofu Heater; #3832, 350 gal stock tank;# 3833 central raised bed, 12″ deep X 18″ wide X 8′ long; view of stock tank showing the shelf across it for Red Caribbean and two Habanero plants as well as the top insulation panel; #3843 front left raised bed with spinach which we harvest every week. #3811, view of the 20′ Gro-Dome from our patio; close up of first tomato, it’s an heirloom Vineing Tomato, the others are heirloom Roma’s.
This Dome is just shy of three years old and we probably should have taken it down both summers as it really serves no purpose except that we wanted to see just how hot it would get in there in the summer and we were thinking about just how bad we could treat it and how long it would last.
Well, it get’s over 120º in the summer. Next summer we’ll take it down since it takes me 30 minutes to set it up by myself now. The very first time I set it up it took me close to 45 minutes, whew, got all done and went inside for a cup of coffee and looked out at my new prize as it lifted off, jumped the back fence and drifted about 50 yards into my neighbors yard as I hadn’t yet pegged it down. It was so light that I tried to just lift it up with a friend and bring it back but the wind kept catching it so I just disassembled it and reassembled it. This time, by myself, it took only 30 minutes.
During the winter I find that with the outside temperatures in the 30’s it get’s over 80º inside the Dome. At about 3PM I start stoking the Chofu heater and by 6:30PM the Stock tank is about 120º. This keeps the temperature inside the dome no less than 40º when the evening temps drop down to below freezing. Even into the teens the inside of the dome stays above freezing which is why we have a Lemon Tree, a Lime Tree, a Curry plant (like a tree really) and our Aloe plant and they never die off due to the cold. We grow tomatoes, spinach, Curry, Lime, Lemon, Datil peppers, Habanero’s, Thai peppers, Caribbean Reds and Serrano’s year around. In addition our kitchen herbs do very well in the dome and we take them out for the summer to reside on our deck closer to the kitchen.
The joint failures are not likely to occur when we start taking the dome down during the summer. Here in Gastonia, NC the summer is pretty brutal and the winters are fairly mild with the temperatures dipping in the teens only a week or so and never for a prolonged period. Love our Gro-dome, thanks Bob and thanks as well to Eleanore’s great customer service.
