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overwintering Over winter greenhouse type?

JasoninTN

JasoninTN

Was thinking of getting one of the 6x8 harbor freight greenhouses to maybe over winter a couple of my favorite peppers. And get some starts going early. Question would be it gets cold here in the winter. How warm would I have to keep the greenhouse at night for the peppers to make it would likely be super hot varieties. Have grown a lot of peppers but never have overwintered any and never have had a greenhouse. Was thinking of doing a propane heater but don't want to be spending $20 a week on propane to keep some peppers going. Thanks

Jason
 
Thats the thing... you would have to heat it and insulate it... gas, electric, or kerosene...
 
The good news is that if you get a small greenhouse you could probably use a space heater or a kerosene heater instead of having to get a gas tank installed and all that hassle....
 
I've successfully overwintered plants on a portable unheated greenhouse on my balcony with temps dropping down to 20F.
I've used some bubble wrap to insulate it and placed a couple of black painted containers full of water inside to catch some solar heat in the day and slowly release it at night time. Check out greenhouse passive heating for some other tricks.
If your goal is to barely keep alive some plants and dont mind losing some you probably don't need a lot of heat.
Some varieties overwinter better than other also so is pretty trial and error.
 
Good luck
 
Datil
 
Thanks for the info so far I have a 100lb propane bottle already so I could use it would just need to get a heater. Guess I needed to just get the greenhouse and experiment a bit to se how things go.

Jason
 
I pruned, repotted and overwintered 4-5 plants last year in my unheated garage.  I simply hung a couple CFLs over them and gave em a few hours light each day.  Interestingly enough, a couple managed to put on an itty bitty bit of new growth. 
 
Another idea is to use some Christmas lights and CFLs.  I have one of those el cheapo $20 greenhouse shelves that you buy at BigLots.  It worked nicely with my seedlings last Feb/March.  On the really cold nights, I covered with a blanket and found it was about 15* warmer in there overnight.
 
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