Kitchen Garden Forum

Just thought I might share a tip with you, if you are interested in growing things in the cold greenhouse:
when I buy my bags of potting compost in February, I always store them on top of the waist-high staging in the greenhouse and cover them with black plastic (=bin liners). All the newly seeded pots and pans, chitting potatoes and young seedlings are left on the top shelves during the day so that the black plastic is exposed to the sun. In the evening I move everything down to stand on the potting compost which has been warmed all day. If it gets very cold, everything is covered with bubble plastic as well. It's amazing how much heat is stored in the bags. I must add that we are lucky that the greenhouse gets the sunshine from early in the morning until mid to late afternoon.
From about the end of March/beginning of April, I do heat the greenhouse with an oil-filled tube electric heater because by then, tomatoes, chillies, sweet peppers etc will be growing there and they will need a bit more warmth. And by that time, much of the compost has been used in any case.

Great tip Monika.
Simple yet effective, thanks.

I just love simple tips like this, Monika, as it can make a big difference to someone who is just getting into gardening or someone that has been growing for years and just simply never thought of the idea.

I keep a black plastic water tank, the sort that normally live in the loft, under the staging for a similar effect. As well as a storage heater, it gives you a supply of water which has had the chill taken off it. Later in the year, it serves as a resevoir for automatic watering with a small pump.

But using the fertiliser bags is a great idea because it is a free bonus. Like it.

With a similar idea in mind I made some staging down the centre of my greenhouse by putting four black plastic dustbins filled with water in a line and a piece of strong plywood on top. I covered the plywood by turning compost bags inside out so the black side is outside. These warm up on sunny days and keep the frost off at night - with a bit of fleece over the plants if necessary.