Posts Tagged: frost protection

Plan B for Tropicals

Last year, I bought a pop up greenhouse. I set it up in a sunny place, applied shade cover, and nurtured my tropicals and seedlings. The whole thing was a success. Until winter. At that point, it was basically just a cold frame. While it protected from frost, it was too cold to keep tropicals in there, so they had to come inside.

This spring I noticed the Velcro ties and screen mesh that served as doors dissolved to powder, followed by the roof ripping apart right down the middle of the rip stop material. Long story short, never buy these. It's just land fill. Buy something solid if you must have a greenhouse. Or, you can do what I did. I have a guest room that serves now as a grow room. For a fraction of the cost it takes to buy and set up and run a greenhouse, you can just get the T5 high output fluorescent bulb kits. They are amazing. Alternate the bulbs color spectrum, and your tropicals will bloom as well.  They're doing better now than they ever did in that greenhouse.

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