Here in the Deep South, we don’t get long stretches of freezing weather. This has allowed us to get away with some cheap greenhouse heating options. This is a quick overview of our barrel/propane heating combo we’re using right now to keep plants alive through freezing nights.
Our greenhouse is roughly 2,000 square feet. On nights between about 28 and 32, we can get away with just passive heat from the many barrels of water we put inside the space.
When it gets to the mid-20s or lower, we use two Mr. Heater propane heater heads (we got them on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4albTuI) on barbecue-grill style propane tanks.
They last long enough to get us through the night and into the day, when the sun rises and warms the greenhouse enough to keep the plants fine.
When it gets below 20, we run three of these heater heads and that keeps it just fine. We’ve handled temperatures down to 11 so far and kept our plants okay.
The worst part is the cost of the propane. One day we hope to add a diesel heater or a big propane tank professional greenhouse heater, but right now we’re just doing what we can with the money we have… so far, so good!
The other night I sent some pictures from inside the greenhouse to my brother.
Brian told me it looked like a Star Trek set. Sure enough!
I took a selfie in front of the red-lit greenhouse as well:
Note that you can see stars in the sky behind me… like you can’t in this picture:
It hit 18 degrees the night I took our photos, which is a bit rough for just the barrels to handle.
One day we may improve our heating, especially if we keep getting winters like this, but for now we’re on a shoestring budget.
We’ve got a lot of coffee, mulberries, lemon grass and other plants in the greenhouse just waiting for things to warm up so we can bring them to the shop. If we can get through these freezes for another month, we’ll be good until next winter.
