It’s April and we’re getting into serious planting season. As the sun makes more of an effort to actually come out from behind the clouds the days are getting warmer, and keeping an eye on the greenhouse thermometer tells us that it’s getting quite cosy in there during the day.
The trouble is, it’s also getting very cold in there over night, and on Monday night – the first night that I took the top off the tomato propagator and left it off for the whole night – we had another frost. Winter, it seems, isn’t quite ready to give up the fight just yet.
So I’ve given in and bought a heater. It doesn’t quite make me feel as bad as a gas heater for the patio would, but it’s coming close. Fortunately I can justify it by thinking about all the food miles we’re saving by growing our own food and remind myself that when we’re sitting outside and it’s getting a bit cold we either put on a coat or go inside, not light a gas-powered tin umbrella.
Anyhow, I didn’t realise until I started looking into it but when buying a heater you first need to measure your greenhouse and then buy the right kind. Our glasshouse is 12ft x 8ft, and we had chosen a paraffin heater, which is cheap to buy and not too expensive to run, but requires a bit more attention than an electric one. Electric ones have their own thermostat so can click on and off when appropriate – and of course you can put them on a timer plug.
Paraffin heaters, on the other hand, have a reservoir of paraffin in the base, a chimney or two on top and an arrangement of wicks inside them. You light the wicks, which soak up the fuel, and in turn they heat the metal chimneys. These then give out that heat to the rest of the greenhouse and, as a bonus, give off carbon dioxide, which the plants need to grow.
Because of the size of the greenhouse, we needed to buy a two-chimney heater which added about £5 to the cost of a single-chimney model and will, of course, burn the fuel slightly more quickly. It’s sitting there now, soaking its wicks in the paraffin, waiting for its first lighting.
I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs and glad that, thanks to the wireless sensor in the greenhouse, we can monitor its progress from the warm and comfort of the house.
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