The heat is on!
 

Today we are supposed to hit 100. Yesterday, when we were at a mere 97, the temp in the greenhouse hit 103. I ran inside to get the aluminet sun shade, and almost immediately, the temperature dropped to 99. That's the good news.
The BAD news is that I already have a sun shade up (the kind you'd find at ACE or Lowe's), and with the aluminet, I'm afraid I won't have enough light for the cattleyas, much less the tomatoes. If the temperature in the greenhouse continues to rise, I'm likely to have fried plants.
Ideas?

I just invested in a mist king system. It arrived today so it will be going up over the weekend. Hopefully that will help.
My greenhouse has gone up to almost 40, so that's 110, tho recently it has been a bit cooler. Nothing died at that temp.

I have also heard of people buying swamp coolers (evaporative coolers) in places that are dry and hot like Arizona. Works as a cooling system that will add some humidity to the air. You need an opening to set it in so it sucks the dry air from outside, it is blown thru water saturated filters which cool the air and blow into the greenhouse.

Our swamp cooler has been running for months, silken. It goes on as soon as the temperature hits 85 in the greenhouse. We use them in our house, too, so we're very familiar with the concept. And the down side to the evap cooler is it doesn't do much once the rains come...though when that happens, the temperature usually drops a bit too.
It's the intensity of the sun that does it!

My mother has one in her home in New Mexico, works really well.

The swamp coolers work well in terms of bringing moist air into a dry place. We use it instead of an air conditioner until the monsoon. At that point, we have to switch to an air conditioner in the house. If it is humid outside, the swamp cooler just pushes the warm, hot air around. If it is, say, 110 with 12% humidity, the swamp cooler is terrific. Bring the humidity up to, say, 50% and the word "swamp" comes to mind!
We have a mister system that goes off every hour or so. That helps a little.
This is my first summer with the greenhouse, so every day is an experiment.

Me too. It's experiment all the way. If the misters work, I would like to get a nerpenthes, but there's no point if there isn't enough moisture around.

Sounds like you have it covered if you also have good air movement from fans in there. Short of installing the regular type of air con, (which would likely use lots of electricity and be a fairly costly approach), not sure what you could do.

I just stuck some containers of water in the freezer, thinking maybe if the air blows across ice, that might help.
We have an overhead vent that opens automatically when things heat up. And there are side louvers, plus the swamp cooler. At 2pm today, the prediction is 100 degrees with 8% humidity. Any moisture I gain is pretty much lost through the vents! This is going to be interesting!

Weird that you need an air conditioner with the swamp cooler, but I'm sure a greenhouse is way different. My mother does not have an air conditioner, just the swamp cooler and her house stays nice and cool.

I think it depends on where she lives and how hot it gets, wintergirl. If she's in the high country, it may not hit the temperatures we hit. She may also have a house with thick adobe walls. If it is humid outside, the swamp cooler gets turned off, the windows get closed, and the AC goes on. It stays that way until the rainy season is over and the humidity is down again.
In the greenhouse, AC would keep things cool, but since part of what AC does is remove moisture from the air, it wouldn't help the orchids much.

I remember having to switch from a swamp cooler to AC when the summer monsoons hit Tucson. C'est la vie!

Cattleyas can do well with less sun during the summer, mainly because many of them come from places where the summer rains cause local trees to put out more leaves, thus reducing light to the orchids below. Just be sure to crank your fans on high so there is a lot of air movement. My Catts do just fine with the 105 temps common to the Central Texas summer. Do you best to get humidity up as well.

Here at the Lowes in NM (Texas Pan Handle area) they have giant fans and something that sprays water in front of them. Refreshing!

Strangely in the hot southwest, you get quite a difference in sunlight in shadow and night and day. The heat diffuses quickly when no damp grass is holding onto it. Potential suggestion? Plant grass in the greenhouse?

If I continue living out here, I will be putting an aquaponics setup in the greenhouse. Cat fish, a few heads of lettuce and orchids. Should keep things quite steamy.

She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It gets very hot there. She does have an adobe home.

I live in Clovis. Albuquerque is much cooler. I grew up in Albq.

Albuquerque is considered a cold desert and according to weatherspark, it rarely gets above 98. Tucson's hottest temperature was 117. Albuquerque is at 5253 feet, while Tucson is at 2643. Albuquerque is also considerably farther north than we are. All those things factor in to how hot and how dry it is, and how well that swamp cooler is liable to work.

Sometimes, Ohio doesn't seem so bad. :)

LOL! Yes, but other than the heat, this is a pretty benign place. Not buggy...too dry for mosquitoes. You can almost always eat outside and not worry about flies. The critters we have are big enough so you can see them coming, and often slow enough to hit with a tennis racket. No blizzards. No tornadoes. Flash floods don't last long. And the time that isn't summer is delightful! Winter attire means shoes with toes, as opposed to flip flops, and maybe long pants and a long sleeved tee shirt. Pop on a sweatshirt if it gets REALLY cold...like 30! ;-)

Hmm, it is as if you know this place. :|

I am originally from Chicago, Leafmite. We moved here in the late 80s when the walls INSIDE our house had ice on them! I also have a not-so-pleasant memory of the fruit turnover that I was enjoying until I saw half an earwig in the next bite!!!
I'm much better able to handle the heat than the cold. I get up before dawn to do my bike ride when it is in the 60s, and wait until days like today to swim so that the water is warm enough.
For humans, it is pretty sweet. Live in a cooled house, drive your air conditioned car to an air conditioned mall or work. If you pick your activities for early or late in the summer, you're golden.
My orchids, however, are not having a good time. I don't dare put them out until the rains come, because 8% humidity is just no fun for them.

It's getting hot in here!
 

Even with aluminet 60% it's actually warmer in the mini greenhouse than outside(I have a small fan running). I put another double layer of aluminet on top of the greenhouse to try to keep the temp down; it had reached 89 at one point. I'm going to put together a swamp cooler to see if that helps. Does anyone have any tips? This is all new to me. Thanks

It's new to me too, Mo Boggie. The swamp cooler helps, but it will almost always be warmer inside the greenhouse than it is outside...except at night! Hopefully, by the end of the summer we'll have a better handle on things.

Well, that was fun. I finally got the system up, but I'm short on tube, so that's a drag. It was a nice hot sunny day, so working in the greenhouse was an absolute joy, why yes it was. The sweat was running off me like crazy, and runnig in my eyes at crucial moments, which is SUCH fun.
Then there's wiring in an extra socket, with sweaty fingers and slippery screwdrivers with the blood throbbing in my head.
Yep, all in all a great day. Plus I have the bonus that all that time in the sauna (sorry, greenhouse) should have sweated off a few pounds. I hadn't realised how dehydrated I'dd got till I went to baptise a plant in the garden, and found I was passing yellow powder.

Couple of pints of water and I could almost pass for human.

12:52pm, and the outdoor temp is 99.6. We still have a good hour before we peak out, so I'm thinking today is the day the ice finally breaks on the Santa Cruz River. ;-). We have the regular sun shade cloth, the aluminet, a swamp cooler, and misters, and at the moment the greenhouse is 89 degrees! I just hope there is still enough light getting in for stuff to grow! The humidity is about 61, so in terms of temps and humidity, I'm pretty pleased.
109 within the next week or two!!!

I think that those temperatures are why I live in Ohio. :)

Yes, but talk to me about this again come January.
And remember, when it is hot, like today, our humidity is about 8%. You hit 98, and your humidity is what? 75%?

First, you need a big fan or two, not just one small one. If its warmer outside, then open the hatches and let outside air in!! And 89 degrees is not a problem. Start to worry once you get above 100.

Yes, it gets very humid during the summer. Still, winter makes those of us here love summer. You really appreciate all those spring bulbs, lilacs, and everything else that comes to life when the snow becomes a distant memory.

I am in london ontario and i have 4 fans in my greenhouse and 4 vented slots for exhaust and inner flow , but it seems to be too hot in my 8 by 8 , i still have my orchids under lights in the basement and still scratching my head wondering if i should pass on the greenhouse and stick. With a better controlled enviroment , but this fogger thing sounds intresting , just wonder if i could find one in ontario?

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Meh, It never gets too cold here, though it does freeze at nights in Jan and Feb, tho if you get up late in the morning, you'd never know.

Even with that spring is still great with masses of wild flowers.

You don't need a hellish winter to appreciate spring.

At this time of year, I'd just hang your orchids under a tree. No need for a greenhouse!

I totally agree!!!

That sounds like a good idea , perhaps hanging them on my lilac bush branches may be a possibility , just need to find pots with hangers ;)

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Which fogger do you refer to? The swamp cooler or something else?

I believe the swamp cooler or somthing along those lines. Perhaps a portable unit i can rig up inside the Gh .

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I have a good one, used one short part of the summer I am thinking of maybe selling. Not sure you or anyone you know is ever down this way.

No need! Pot hangers are cheap and readily available. I use them all the time for both plastic and clay pots. I like the metal ones the best.

Roberts Flower Supply has pot hangers...as does many other places.
You could also set up an arbor and use a little shade cloth to provide the shade if the lilac doesn't quite have enough coverage.