Mini Greenhouse?

[Spike]

My City slicker hubby, bought me a mini greenhouse for Christmas. He is so proud of his gift and sadly I have no clue how to even use it. Here is a link to what he bought me:

www.walmart.com/ip/homewell-mini-walk-i ... /259294531

When it comes time for gardening he is going to want to see me use it and I am clueless. Am I supposed to start seeds in this thing? Extend gardening season?

Currently I start seeds inside with grow lights, harden off the plants by taking them out and inside, and eventually leaving them out on a rack.

Please help! LOL I don't know how to use this new fangled fancy stuff!!

[eyegrotom]

Hi Spike congratulations on the mini green house. But the link you posted doesn't work for me.

[Spike]

Hi Spike congratulations on the mini green house. But the link you posted doesn't work for me.

Let me try again!

https://www.walmart.com/ip/homewell-min ... /259294531

How about now?

[Cajun-Hydroponics]

Congratulations on the GH!

There are many things that you can do with this GH.

A few tips.

The smaller the GH is the faster that the temp will change. If its warm out it will probably be hot in the GH if it's not opened up. Example if it's in the 70s out with no wind you could easily reach the high 90s inside that GH quick if the sun is out.

Same with the cold at night when the sun goes down the temps will drop fast in it.

The first GH I bought was prob the exact same on that you have here. If you have the ability to strengthen it you would want to do it. The shelves and walls will take a beating in the wind and the weight of 1020 trays with dirt will also stress the shelves.

The main thing with this is securing it to the ground. Just putting a few cinderblocks will help on normal days. But a winter storm there in Ohio will make it like a parachute. Putting something in the ground like a tee post on the corners will hold much better.

Dont get me wrong please. I am not trying to discourage you from the GH. Just giving you my experiences with the same one in the general area of where you are, I was in Steubenville OH when I got mine. Came home from work and had to pick the pieces out the neighbor's yard after a small winter storm passed through.

As far as what you can grow. If your gonna heat it your seed starts would love it.
Also microgreens and small winter plants in pots.

If you have the ability put a thermometer in there so you will be able to follow the temp curves throughout the day.

It's a learning experience and unless you have someone in the same area as you with the same setup the will be wins and loses.

I heater mine with a small floor heater it ran all night but kept the temps up enough for my seed starts to grow well.

[goodloe]

Cool, [mention]Spike[/mention] ! I'm sure you'll figure out quite a few uses for it!! I bought 2 mini GHs at Lowe's back in October. Very small...portable thingys on casters so you can move them around. I just couldn't say no to $5 a piece...!

btw, the 2nd link you posted works fine...

[MissS]

Spike you have a good man there. He put some thought into your gift. Consider yourself lucky and enjoy the greenhouse.

With that said, I have heard of people having problems with these in the wind so the above advise of reinforcing it is probably a good thing to do. I would also put it right up to the side of your house if you have an area that you can do that.

I would think that this would be perfect for growing cool season crops in, lettuce and the cole crops should do fine. As the new year progresses some seeds could be started in there too. Have fun. Experiment. See what you can do. Just know that this greenhouse will be short lived. They only last a few seasons and then they are gone.

[Whwoz]

@Spike, as mentioned above, plenty of uses for this, I use something similar for growing on my tomato and other seedlings once they have been potted up. Place in trays on shelves, just remove to water so you are not getting dripping on those underneath. If you want to buffer the temperature changes, fill buckets, jerry cans etc with water and place in the bottom on greenhouse. This will slow down the rate of air temperature change within the greenhouse. Alternative would be cinder blocks, bricks etc, but realise that they will hold cold as well as heat so don't put them into the greenhouse before it warms up

[jamieo]

I bought one similar to that (but a little larger) last Christmas from Home Depot as a gift for my better half. We used it to store some cannas and other seedlings before we set them out. We had to do a lot of reinforcing to brace it from the wind and in the end we had issues with the covering tearing at the seams. I don't think we will use it this season. Maybe you'll have better luck than we did It functions well as a type of polytunnel or cold greenhouse if you can work through the issues with wind

[mikestuff49]

I have the same mini greenhouse. I start seeds indoors under lights, but they soon take over and run out of space. This is perfect for growing plants out until they are ready to set out. I agree that you need to secure it pretty well. I have a space that is somewhat sheltered from the wind, but still gets quite a bit of sunlight. I use a small space heater (check to be sure that it can tolerate damp spaces) to keep the temps up at night. When I'm done, I can take it apart and store it until the next season. It seems to be pretty durable and this will be the third season without having any damage to the cover. Good luck in the upcoming season!