HelpfulGardener.com

I planted my tomato seeds two days ago. Looks like I have a 100% germination rate. I've counted 54 seedlings, half red beef steaks and half purple Cherokee. Anyway, this morning they were just poking through and three hours later they're up about an inch. No kidding!
Oh, the reason for so many plants is I have a little gardening business.

I did that and when you do it with 30 diffrent seeds and they all come up.
You end up like me with 300 plus plants. One day ill learn to just do 3 seeds of each owell.

Success!

You must have a warm location for them, Pow wow. Be sure to get them into light right away. Obviously, they are growing rapidly and will go searching for it! That might mean -- stretching.

I start seeds on top the fridge. It stays about 70°F there all the time but the only light is from the ceiling fixture. I have to check those boxes a couple times a day so they can be moved out of the darkness and into the light.

Steve

GardenGnome,
Oh yes, I've done that many times. My problem is I can't stand killing off plants. But I had to.LOL

Steve,
A few years ago my brother-in-law gave me his 3 tiered plant rack. I don't know how I ever got along with out it. Each tier has a light canopy. So in each there is 2 long fluorescents (a warm and a cool) and 2 full spectrum sun blaster fluorescents. Those are those curly bulbs.
I made a mistake last year. Even with my heater going in the greenhouse, I put my tomato seedlings in there too soon. We had a very cold and wet spring and all the tom plants turned a bright green and became very stunted. I tossed many out. I didn't feel right charging my customers for the plants so I gave them away. All rebounded and produced a good crop. I will be keeping them in the house under lighting a bit longer this year.

Pow wow, my tomato seedlings (everything, actually) went out for a visit in the greenhouse for the 1st time today. Just a visit but since it was partly sunny I had to open a vent!

I am avoiding even the thought of turning on the furnace out there for as many days as I can. Yeah, they are all back in the house here with me in the south window.

DW and I do a relay routine with one of us hurrying between the greenhouse and the deck - the other snatching the plants and carrying them indoors. We had 25mph gusts and 38°F for a high this afternoon so the trips to and from were not so pleasant for the tiny critters. Let's see . . . that was 40kph wind gusts and 3°C.

Steve

Sounds like you have some nice greenhouses.
All I have is this and I'm scared to put my plants in it.
We had some snow but it melted the same day.
Will frost kill pepper plants if it gets to cold?
[img]https://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj565/ericmgilson/2012-02-08_10-22-30_651.jpg[/img]

Frost definitely kills pepper plants.

Even if there in the green house?
What if I do a cold frame?

I have my phone on weather alert.
Its partly cloudy and low is 42.
I read somewhere that on clear nights is when frost will happen.
What's unsafe night temps?

I think the lowest it got here this winter was 39-40F and I had a serrano pepper outdoors. No damage but the plant was dormant some of the winter. I think some peppers can handle a light frost (with protection I think), there are some people who have stories on the internet.

GG I think you may want to invest in a thermometer with wireless remote sensor to put inside the greenhouse. Make sure it has max/min feature. Well, that's the lazy me talking -- you could also simply get a cheap thermometer for the greenhouse and keep track of temps inside.

42 would be fine.. green peppers wouldn't love it, but they would survive. The trouble with green houses is no insulation. At night unheated they are about the same temperature as outside (unless as Bobberman points out you have LOTS of thermal mass inside to store heat and give it back at night, but that takes a lot of thermal mass to make a significant difference).

Unsafe is close to freezing.

My greenhouse is an 8ft by 8ft that I ordered online from costco. The first year I had it I kept it heated over the winter. What a mistake, the heating bill was unbelievable. We dip a few times in the winter to -35 celsius.
The mad dash between the greenhouse and the house sound very familiar lol. My dracaena went in the GH yesterday, today my rice and my silver and emerald falls go in.

I hope this is allowed. I'm really not that computer friendly. I had my sister put up my pictures from the past two summers on my photobucket. My yard and greenhouse over the past couple of summers. Couple mountain pictures, corner of Alberta, Montana and British Columbia.
google
JohnCm_bucket's album

It's allowed to post pics... if you look, there's lots of them here, but yours didn't come through.

On photo bucket, each pic will have some codes under it. Just click on the one that says IMG, then paste it in here. Very easy. You don't need to use our Img button, because that coding is already in the photobucket IMG code.

Thanks,
I'll try again.

We should "force" Pow wow to perform . . . come on John! Let's see those pictures!!

Okay, here's an album link: [url=https://s899.photobucket.com/albums/ac192/JohnCm_bucket/?start=all]JohnCm_bucket's album[/url] Very lovely dahlias, other flowers and some nice ripe tomatoes in a summer backyard. The greenhouse is in 1 picture .

GardenGnome wrote:Even if there in the green house?
What if I do a cold frame?

Here's the story on my greenhouse (actually a "sunshed" since it has an insulated roof & north wall): Wind continued, it is 32°F outdoors right now and the greenhouse is 37°. It does not retain much heat with a polyethylene film south wall.

When I 1st built a backyard greenhouse - it was a lean-to against my garage, then - I tried to keep it heated thru the winter with a large, electric bathroom heater . The door froze shut! I couldn't do more than look at things thru the window; including a happily running electric heater eating into my bank account!

Steve

Thanks Steve, I'm absolutely clueless unless someone sits beside me and walks me through it.lol I will get my sister to do that next time she's over.
Yes, I recall at -25 celsius, just peeking from the outside to make sure the plants survived another night.

Here's one of the pics, just to show you what it looks like if you copy/ paste the IMG code here:

[img]https://i899.photobucket.com/albums/ac192/JohnCm_bucket/204.jpg[/img]

That's beautiful you show-off.

Eric

Thank you rainbowgardener and Eric.
That was an experiment. My deck had rotted out so I needed something there last summer. Now I will just hang out in front of the GH until I get around to putting something permanent in that spot. Could be years.lol

just to be clear, that is one of pow wow's pictures....