I'm just trying to have a little fun and eat ripe tomatoes too. Without a heat source and venting, anything that isn't cold hardy will probably freeze or burn up. I was suprised how high and quickly heat builds up with the plastic down. As an example, when the sun is shining at 10:30 in the morning the temp inside goes to 101 degrees when it's 42 degrees outside. At 11:30 when the outside temp is 52 degrees the inside temp will go to 134 degrees (it would have gotten hotter but I chickened out and raised the plastic).
Without a heat source, the temp inside will be 3 - 5 degrees warmer than the outside temp. I'm using a 1250 watt heater and it seems to be adequate for this area. The hot house is 4' wide x 20' long x 7' high.
A vent fan at the top pulls outside air inside when the temp reaches 75 degrees, which keeps the inside temp at 78 degrees when the sun shines.
The heater kicks in when the temp inside drops below 70 degrees and will keep the temp inside at 55 degrees when the outside temp is 22 degrees (the coldest it's gotten so far).
Today's pictures.
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