Greenhouse Herb Gardening: Heating
Greenhouses are made of materials that naturally insulate the light and heat energy from the sun and retain it within the greenhouse. Usually the glass or plastic used provides good insulation, and the frame used for the greenhouse has insulating properties as well. During the spring or autumn, greenhouses can usually do a good amount of insulating without any help.
In countries or places where winter can be unusually cold or even autumn evenings are already very cold, you may need to install a heater in your greenhouse. This will keep your herbs warm despite the freezing weather, and you can sleep well at night because you know that your herbs are sleeping well too.
Choose a heater for your greenhouse that abides by the laws of where you live. While non-vented heaters are cheaper and usually work well for most greenhouse needs, some places do not allow non-vented heaters to be inside a structure. Do research on how much heat your greenhouse needs in order to be able to choose the right heater, and to prevent the accidental “frying” of plants. If they are warm enough during the day, maybe you only need to turn your heater on at night. Be sure you buy a heater that is economical in energy consumption. Some heaters use electricity to run, others use propane or natural gas. If you feel that these methods are all too expensive, you can try using this alternative method to trap the heat in your greenhouse.
First, cover your greenhouse walls with bubble wrap or insulating cloth. You can get both of these in a hardware store. Next, take a few ten gallon buckets and paint one side black and the other side white. Position these buckets at the corners of your greenhouse and in between walls, making the white sides face the inside of the greenhouse. Fill the buckets with water.
During the day the greenhouse will heat up from the sun and trap the heat with the bubble wrap. Heat will also be reflected by the white paint in the ten gallon buckets. The water in these buckets will store heat all throughout the day and slowly release the heat throughout the night. Try this method on your greenhouse and see if it works. If it does, then you can save a lot of money doing it this way rather than investing in a greenhouse heater!
