We’ve been talking about the concept of heated greenhouses for our seedlings lately. This might seem like a bougie concept, something only “elite” growers have, but there’s ways to get it done on a tight budget with temporary seedling houses!
There was a time where we didn’t even have an actual greenhouse, much less a heated greenhouse. We went through several iterations of small seedling greenhouses, designed to help us get our seedlings outside as early in the season as possible.
In our early years, we tried to use those cheap plastic shelf based greenhouses you find at various online retailers. We grew tired of these because the manufacturing quality was so low that we couldn’t even get them to last a single season. So, we opted to craft a seedling specific heated greenhouse out of PVC and 6mm UV rated plastic!
If you can keep the scope of a greenhouse small, like for seedlings, they can actually be quite inexpensive to build. There’s all sorts of fittings based around PVC that can help you craft various shapes and sizes. You can also find handy PVC clips that help you securely attach UV rated plastic to the frame.
Small greenhouses like this can easily be heated with a simple space heater and a temperature controller. We found they can easily ward off frosts and those low temperatures we get in the shoulder season, we’d typically heat ours to a minimal 45 degrees or so. As long as you’re not heating against brutal temperatures, it’s actually surprisingly cost effective! Better yet, they can be easily broken down come summer, so they don’t require immense storage space for summer and winter.
It’s important to be aware that any greenhouse, big or small, has the ability to produce extremely high temperatures. So, you have to think about not just heating, but also ventilation and cooling. With these small greenhouses, your cooling strategy can be as simple as propping it up or removing it during the day.
Anyway, we have a feature length article on how we built our DIY seedling greenhouse, which might help to inspire you! Be sure to check out the link in the comments if something like this is up your alley!
