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Old 01-11-2019, 09:42 AM   #69
Ben E Lou
Morgado's Favorite Forum Fascist
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Greensboro, NC
I have to comment again on the mini-greenhouse. Obviously, I thought it would be a good fit for my situation. Well, I must say that it has absolutely blown away even my somewhat-high expectations:
  • It traps heat *far* better than I would have thought for something that small with an open bottom. My deck faces south with all-day sunlight, so on sunny days like today I'm able to turn the heater off once the sun comes up, and won't need to turn it back on until an hour or so after sunset. Right now, a good 2 1/2 hours after turning the heater off, it's 31 degrees outside (low was 19) and 71 degrees in the greenhouse. Today is the coldest day we've had since I've had it, and even so I won't be surprised if I need to open it up mid-day to cool it off a bit in there.
  • Securing it from wind couldn't have been easier: my deck has little slits between the boards, and I was able to thread wiring that I use to secure tomatoes to their stakes through the deck and tie all four corners down that way. It's tied extremely solidly.
  • Given how it traps heat, it'd be too hot on my back deck once it starts to warm up in the spring, but I have no real need to use it other than for Jan-Mar seed starting.
  • When I targeted the greenhouse, I didn't know about 72-cell peat seed-starting kits. I've got one in there that's doing great, and two would fit on each shelf if need be. So theoretically, I could house over 500 seedlings in there even with the space heater if I went with the tiny cells.
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