Kiddicraft Brick Farm – Greenhouse Building Set KC1111

Kiddicraft's Brick Farm Greenhouse is a building set with transparent panels, working doors and open interior space — with flowers, vegetables and shrubs, plus watering cans, pots and gardening tools. Age 5+.

A greenhouse does not work the way the name suggests

The greenhouse effect is named after greenhouses, and it is not how greenhouses actually heat up. The mechanism is much simpler than the atmospheric one.

Sunlight passes through glass and is absorbed by soil, benches and plants, which warm up and radiate that heat back as longer infrared wavelengths that glass does not transmit well. That part matches the name. But it accounts for a minority of the effect.

What actually keeps a greenhouse warm is that the air cannot leave. Outdoors, warm air rises off heated ground and is carried away, replaced by cooler air — endlessly. A glass box stops that. The air heats, stays put, and heats further.

This was demonstrated in 1909 by an American physicist, Robert Wood, who built two identical boxes — one glazed with glass, one with rock salt, which is transparent to infrared. Both reached almost the same temperature. If the radiation trap were the main mechanism, the salt box should have stayed cool.

The finding is why greenhouse ventilation matters so much: opening a vent undoes most of the heating in minutes, which is exactly what growers use to control temperature.

Why a farm set includes one

A greenhouse extends a growing season at both ends — seedlings started weeks before the last frost, tomatoes ripening weeks after the first. In northern Europe that is the difference between growing a crop and not.

The transparent panels are the set's distinguishing feature, and they are what makes the interior worth filling.

In the Brick Farm range

Sets KC1106 (Pony Farm), KC1108 (Farm Stable) and KC1112 (Veterinary Practice) are the other large buildings.

Specifications

Series: Kiddicraft Brick Farm · Transparent panels, working doors, plants and gardening accessories · Age: 5+ · Compatible with leading brick systems