The day I posted about my mini greenhouse experiments, it was a brilliant sunny day. I wandered out to the patio to check the greenhouse, because it had been overcast for a lot of days in a row. I was quite surprised to find that, although the outdoor temperature was 32°F (0°C), the patio was reading at 60°F (15.5°C). That is the perks of having a south facing cement patio, my friends!
When I looked at the greenhouse, I was even more surprised! The greenhouse thermometer was at 100°F (37.7°C)! The greenhouse instructions say to open the greenhouse to regulate the temperature and vent the heat, so I gave that a try. Within 10 minutes it had lowered to 80°F (26.6°C) and then it dropped further to 70°F (21.1°C). I decided I'd give planting a try and planted some cold weather veggie seeds. I planted cherry belle radishes, lettuce mesclun mix, and Black-seeded Simpson lettuce. Yay! Planting was so fun, and I was so excited to be digging in the dirt in the sunshine again.
The temperature held all the way until the late afternoon. Then at around 4:30pm it had dropped to 42°F (5.5°C) with the door still open, since our sun starts setting around 4pm and finishes just after 5pm. So, I closed the door, and blew some hot air into the bottom of the greenhouse with my blow dryer for about a minute. The temperature went up to almost 50° and I left it for the night. Since I haven't been out there in the middle of the night yet to see what temperature is showing up, I'm not sure if it's dipping to freezing.
The next morning a snow storm had moved in and it was totally overcast, but the greenhouse was reading at 43°F (6.1°C) at 10am. The outside temperature of the air was 33°F (0.5°C). I chalk it up to a success because that's not freezing!. I'm not sure if I'll have to keep blowing hot air into the greenhouse at night, but I really don't mind. It didn't take long, and it might be working!
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