Maintaining Greenhouse Temperatures

Maintaining a consistent temperature in your greenhouse is extremely important. Too much variation in temperature or too hot of a temperature can quickly set back or even kill your plants. To maintain proper temperatures in a greenhouse, you need to know a few things first.

How Hot Does it Get inside the Greenhouse on a warm day? Every greenhouse is different because the amount of shade it gets in the afternoon, the construction materials used, the direction it faces, and the location of your vents or windows all have an influence on the temperature inside. The best way to start understanding your temperature is to measure it. Get an outdoor thermometer than measures highs and lows.

Do certain parts of the greenhouse get hotter than others? If you have used old windows, you may indeed find the greenhouse heats up faster (usually not ideal); if you have used a polycarbonate, the light is more diffused and gets a bit less hot. If you've used a mixture of materials, you may have some spots that get way hotter than others. Not only should this influence where to locate plants but you may wish to consider it when choosing cooling methods.

There a few different ways to regulate the temperature in a greenhouse.

Shade Cloth can be used to keep temperatures from getting too hot inside a greenhouse. Shade cloth comes in a variety of sizes and shading degrees. Of course the ease of putting up and taking down the clothe may be a determining factor in what size to buy. Other materials can be used like shade cloth also, but shade cloth is a really handy greenhouse temperature control material.

Automatic Vents are an excellent way to keep the greenhouse temperatures more consistent. Remember that most plants like a smaller range of temperatures best, so keeping them from scorching is important. However, the automatic vents should close tightly at night as well since come plans are also sensitive to cool temperatures at night.

Visit our Greenhouse Supplies page for greenhouse thermometers, shade cloth, and automatic vent kits.