My New Greenhouse

I have grown plants for decades, strangely I have never used a greenhouse.  

I once tried those tiny plastic covered ones, the plastic did not last one season and now I use it as shelving to store pots of growing things.  When I was at university I also got to walk through some enormous commercial greenhouses which had automated vents and sprinklers, they were incredible.  Other than that, I have no greenhouse growing experience.

Recently my wife and kids built me a walk in greenhouse with many useful shelves.  At first I was worried about the price, and was not sure I would use it enough to warrant spending that much money.  

My new amazing greenhouse

Lots of growing space in here

I put a thermometer in my greenhouse that somehow talks to a unit that is in my house, and I have a weather station outside, between them I can compare the temperature of all three from my living room.  It is very convenient.

The first day after the greenhouse had been built the weather was rather warm outside, and rather hot in the greenhouse.  I can replace the plastic walls with shade cloth if it gets too hot, but for now we still have some cold weather so want it to retain some warmth.

The next day it was cold and rained all day, the greenhouse stayed a few degrees warmer in the greenhouse than outside.  

The day after that it was overcast, windy, and really freezing outside, but the greenhouse somehow warmed up considerably.  It was freezing outside, even inside my house was colder than the greenhouse!  This is with no sun, just gloom on a drizzly overcast day.  

I didn't think to take a photo of the weather station until after it warmed up a little outside.  That day the temperature outside reached about 9 degrees at its peak, inside my house got to about 14, and in the greenhouse eventually reached a toasty 17.9

Temperature outside 7.2C, in my house 14.0C, in greenhouse 16.7C

I have planted some seeds in seed flats and put them in the greenhouse, and moved in a few of our carnivorous plants, and put in some some cuttings that have not yet grown roots, as well as some of my suffering tropicals, and will see how each of them cope with the added day time warmth.  

Oddly enough, the night time temperatures in the greenhouse are colder than outside by a degree or two.  I imagine this is due to evaporation and wind.  I am also guessing that once the outside temperatures drop below freezing that the greenhouse will remain warmer than outside and should keep off the frost.

Sundew seedlings are already catching insects

Sundew already catching a surprising amount of insects

I have a feeling that tropical plants such as kangkong and rice paddy herb will thrive in my greenhouse, and there are a bunch of things I currently don't grow as winters are too cold that I may now be able to try.  There are also some things I grow that perform poorly here that may do fine in my greenhouse.  It is all very new.

I have no idea what will happen over summer, and hope it does not get too hot in there.  The walls can be removed and replaced with shade cloth, as can the roof, so it may take some trial and error to work out a nice routine with it.  

I am excited to see what I can do with this thing!