Keeping Warm
Texas winter’s can be brutal on all plants. That said, the summers can be too warm for a green house. So how do you strike a balance? You get a temporary green house.
Temporary Green House
Green houses are generally made of glass and are more often then not permanent structures. As renters, we could not build anything permanent, but further to that point, the summers in Texas are quite brutal, so we wanted something we could take down and put up. A temporary tarp greenhouse seemed to fit that bill.
We used one of these, they have a tendency to go on sale during the summer. This fit our needs perfectly and was quite easy to put together.
Space Heater
Just to call it out, the green house works great to keep things warm, however when ambient temp is more than about 30 degrees below what you want, you are going to need a space heater. There are many online, some even rated for outdoor use in a green house, but not all work well. I went though about three before I settled on this one.
It put out enough heat and has yet to give me any problems. The only thing I would call out is it will turn off if you lose power, and will NOT turn back on. Once power is restored you do have to go outside and turn it back on.
Sensors
If you are anything like us, you may be nervous to leave a space heater in a greenhouse all night. Further to that point, you might also be a data nerd and want to track temperatures. Either way, these sensors work great. I have 4 in my green house to monitor both temp and moisture, and I have alerts set both at high and low thresholds to sound an alarm if the green house gets too hot or too cold.
Tape
This one is a little silly, but I am going to call it out anyway. The green house I recommended is tarp based; as such it does not seal well to the ground. If you are trying to keep the warm in, you may consider taping the bottom down. It you feel this is needed, gorilla tape works great. Assuming you don’t have 50 mph wind, it stays stuck too.
Bubble Wrap
Last but not least, you may need additional insulation in your green house. One of the cheapest ways to do this, believe it or not, is bubble wrap. During some of the freak winter storms I had to line the inside of the green house with bubble wrap, 2 of these roles allowed me to cover the inside of the walls.
