Selfsufficientish.com

We've just moved to a house with a large-ish garden and a greenhouse, so are currently attempting to grow enough vegetables to feed the world... er, ourselves for a while without having to buy supplemental stuff.

My question is this: is it worth shelling out for a greenhouse heater of the paraffin variety? The greenhouse is glass and aluminium, and has gone down to freezing several times since March because of the continuing cold weather; as a result, things are a little behind our heated counterparts... Paraffin is not a favoured choice, so if anyone could suggest anything better, please do!

How about piles of steaming manure? The Victorians made an art of creating hotbeds out of the stuff and, while it would undoubtably be a bit smelly, it might well help keep the ambient temperature up in your greenhouse.

Wulf

It's an interesting thought, certainly, but I don't think it'd be quite gung-ho enough, really. Very eco-friendly, though!

Hey Kitchenwitch, like the journal! You didn't mention the size of the greenhouse, but if it's not too big you might consider putting a lean-to chickenhouse on the north side of it (or similar). Any way that you could end up with some chickens and their attendant poo sharing some air-space with the greenhouse will have a bit of a warming effect. I can't find figures for heat output of chickens, but I seem to recall that badly-insulated humans put out about 300W/hr each, and medium-sized dogs about 100W/hr.

If that's not an option, you could consider insulating the greenhouse. You can get a 3-layer bubblewrap-type greenhouse insulation film which isn't too pricey, and you just line the inside of the house with it. It lasts for several years, depending on how nicely you store it. If you were to insulate a small house with that, the heat output from a medium-sized soil heating mat would probably be sufficient to keep frost at bay.

If your house is larger, then it might be worth doing - but only if you're growing a lot of tender stuff. As an alternative, could I suggest envirofleece to cover anything specially tender? It can create frost-free microclimates.

I like your thinking, Hedgewizard. Greenhouse is quite small - about eight by ten, I guess, and although we're thinking about chickies, we're waiting until things are a bit straighter in the garden (we've only been here for six months). But the fleece and bubble-wrap = good idea.

Fleece would certainly be a suggestion - it's something you can also use outside once your little darlings are ready to go outside!