Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi, before I go shopping I'd like some advice!

How shall I heat my 6 by 8 greenhouse? It's at the bottom of the garden, no electric nearby.

I currently have peppers and chillis in there.

Any ideas?

Thanks

I use a parasene paraffin heater myself and find this is perfectly adequate, though what size you get will depend upon your greenhouse size:

Heaters

I don't know how these prices compare to other places - so worth having a shop about.

Also, remember you need paraffin (I get mine from B&Q as it is the only supplier I can find locally).

hth

__________________
Mr D
-----
www.storesprite.com

mrdinkle, do you insulate your greenhouse with bubblewrap or something or do you find the paraffin heater enough? Do you leave it on all the time thru the winter or just overnight?

__________________
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't.

not sure about Norfolk heaters but they look suspiciously like Parasene heaters and this one will heat your 8x6

https://www.parasene.com/vshop/details.asp?prodID=207

Trouble is you'll need to fill it up after 3 days ( don't leave it for 3.5 days cos sods law says it will fail in the middle of the night in the worst frost of the year !) and you'll have to trim the wick every day anyway other wise you end up with soot on the inside of the glass and all over the plants!!

So I guess it will cost you £12 per week to run it.

__________________
ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

If you have space in a porch/leanto/windowsill it might be cheaper to bring them in? Otherwise insulate with bubblewrap and even fleece the plants and use a parafin heater

I used to use a paraffin heater until I put an electricity supply to the greenhouse. Paraffin was fine but it does produce a lot of moisture as it burns. Make sure that you ventilate the greenhouse during the daytime so you don't start to get mould, fungus, etc.

As others have said, make sure that you insulate the greenhouse as much as possible to keep the costs down.

__________________
Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it.

Do i only use the parafin heater at night if i know the temperature is going to drop below 0?

__________________

Depends what you're trying to grow really?

I tend to use my small heater to heat a super insulated area within the greenhouse because it's pointless wasting heat on the whole greenhouse if you don't need it!

__________________
My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

If you simply heat a greenhouse then you will lose a lot of the heat straight through the glass. I always insulate well with polystyrene at the bottome and bubble wrap up the sides and then the temperature rarely gets below freezing in the shettler spot where my house is sited. I try to use the heater as little as possible as I think it's rather wasteful. I bring very tender stuff inside and would never dream of heating to keep peppers etc alive all winter - just aim for frost free.

__________________

Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

Perhaps a windowsill in the house would be a better option for a few plants as it will be frost free (hopefully) and you will have no need to heat the greenhouse at all.

I used to use parafin, then gas and now use an electric fan heater as the moisture from the other two used to cause major mould issues as of course by insulating you stop the ventilation required to let the water vapour escape.

__________________
Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated - Sunday 19th at 2100hrs

I use a paraffin similar to this....https://www.parasene.com/vshop/details.asp?prodID=207 except mine has twin paraffin chambers. I took the advice of I think Snadger and only insulated part of my greenhouse with ordinary bubble wrap by creating an area under my wooden staging. Last week the temperature was between 0 and -2 up here in south yorkshire and the temperature inside my greenhouse stayed at around 6 degrees. Alot of moisture is generated but nothing opening the windows the following morning wont sort out.

All of this info is based on what I have read in the forums here and works well for me

An extremely useful forum

Thankyou

DaveC

__________________

I'm new to all this myself and had been wondering the same sort of thing. Haven't tried it, but a friend suggested putting a heap of manure in the green house for a bit of free heat coming off it over winter, and then take it out for compost for the garden in the spring. (and keep pegs by the door for the nose I suppose). Has anyone here tried that?

I used to use a paraffin heater, but frankly the cost was extortionate, the fuel came in non-eco friendly plastic tubs and I was generating greenhouse gases (in every sense of the word) at an alarming rate. Now I germinate indoors then take the seedlings outside once they reach the point where they're bending towards the light. The greenhouse is well insulated and when a frost is forecast I chuck a fleece over the top of anything vulnerable.

__________________
Into each life some rain must fall........but this is getting ridiculous.

[quote=gettingrowin;306699]Haven't tried it, but a friend suggested putting a heap of manure in the green house for a bit of free heat coming off it over winter, QUOTE]
I would need a much bigger greenhouse than I've got!

__________________
Taking it one day at a time and still smiling...

Yes - that was pretty much my response too! : )

My Greenhouse is on my allotment, its one of those 6x6 Poly Greenhouses, it had six concrete slabs in the bottom, but this autumn i took out the centre channel ofthree slabs, and dug down around 8-10 inches, then put membrane and pea shingle in the bottom, i did this to increase the height but also to increase the amount of air volume in the green house and also the shingle will retain their heat. I bought one of these parasene heaters:

https://www.parasene.com/vshop/details.asp?prodID=204

Just outside of the town i live is a very old fashioned garage that sells paraffin lose at 90pence per litre, initially i was reusing 2L milk bottles to transport the fuel but not i switched to a small jerry can for safety.

Ive had mine a couple of months, it runs all the of the time, which means im only checking it every 3 or 4 days, and im surprised how long 4.5litres is lasting, it seems to be about 10-16 days. You dont need very large flames, they are what cause the smoking,i have only trimmed the wick once due to my own stupid mistake of letting it burn and smoke.

The other thing i have done it put two old roll mats, the foam mats you take hiking/camping, theyre only about a foot wide, so i put them on the north facing side and one of the east side (i have my seedlings on the south side).

So far so good, even when it was 3 degrees C last week, the green house was around 8 degrees C, on a cold sunny day with the heater it gets up to 30 degrees in there.

I am raising Roma tomatoes, Aubergines, Peas, Oregon sugar snap all from seed, as well as lettuce and rhubarb. So far so good, no major problems.

Just got a thermometer and some greenhouse bubble wrap today how does it hook into place on the inside of my greenhouse walls? Once its insulated a bit better can i grow anything during winter for eating? thanks for any info

gettinggrowin - Your friend is partially right. A big pile of manure does generate a bit of heat but you wouldn't notice a difference in the air temp. However if you put it in a raised bed in your greenhouse and cover with a couple of inches of soil/compostyou create a hot bed, after a few days the soil temperature will be several degrees higher and will stay like this for a few weeks. The Victorians used these all the time to grow salads, radishes etc over winter.

Hot beds also work well outside under a cloche. They are particularly useful for getting an earlier start with your seeds

i have used this technique with great success for the past 3 years and would recommend trying it

Regards

kitchen gardener

I use a small paraffin heater from Norfolk Greenhouses, it cost £10 and runs for over 100h on £4 paraffin. I only use it when the temperature is predicted to go below 6oC. I don't heat the whole greenhouse only 1 section which is insulated with bubblewrap. On average this keeps the temp in that area at about 7oC above ambient. This enables me to grow Pixie tomatoes & chillis until late December. I am still harvesting aubergines this year

If your chillis are in pots make sure your insulate them from ground, either by raising on bricks/staging (the higher the better as heat rises) or by standing on a hot bed

Regards

Kitchen gardener

Thanks for the clarification / tips kitchengardner - think I might try the hot-bed system with a cloche on the plot one of these days.