Frost protection

[1Bee]

Just popped this old family friend into the growhouse. Will it help, or is it just a bonkers idea? Will be interesting to see the thermometer in the morning!

[Dynamite]

I guess you fill it with Hot Water maybe?

Kind Regards.............Rob

[nickdub]

Bit more info needed in order to comment sensibly :-

1) how big is the growhouse ?
2) what's it made from ?
3) what plants do you have in it ?

[Small pumpkin]

I've got one of those 1Bee
Never considered using it for that. Great idea for a small space.

I use mine for sick chickens and cold doggies

[rary]

Any additional heat will help a bit, but I would recommend Cads. frost protection of a tea light candle lit and putting an upturned clay pot over it, evidently if they don't burn long enough for you you could use a candle, and for safety I would recommend suspending it in a jar of water

[1Bee]

Lol yeah, it was filled with hot water...

The growhouse is in a corner of our backyard. It's a wooden framed plastic - y thing like this one :



It's lined inside on two sides with silverised rigid bubble wrap stuff (from the Christmas turkey box!) The lowest temp I've had in there this year is 1C.

The growhouse doesn't have anything really sensitive in it yet. Zinnias, tagetes, dahlias, psb, sprouts, cosmos, and some recently germinated sunflowers that have just come from the windowsill, which I was mildly concerned about.

The water bottle spends most of its year as a doorstop, SP!

I love the tealight idea! Might try that tonight.

Results: temp when I put it in = 10
Max temp overnight = 12.6
Min temp = 6.4

We had frost, so I would have expected it to get lower than that.

[nickdub]

OK looks like you've got it mostly in hand - the key question I suppose is how hard a frost might you get ? If you think it could get down to -5 or so, I'd be inclined to bring the most tender things like the dahlias and the sunflower seedlings back inside at night. The other way round it would be to go with a little paraffin heater you could hang up inside the growhouse - whether this is a cost effective option for you probably depends on how much future use you plan to get out of this setup.