Greenhouse – Quick Facts:

SIZE: 9 ft. x 10 ft. with 36-inch windows.

PAINT COLOR: “Blackout” by Behr (found at The Home Depot)

The Shed (aka Garden House) – Quick Facts:

SIZE: 26 ft. x 12 ft.

Q. Is the greenhouse heated?

A. Sort of… Yes I use an inexpensive little greenhouse heater, no it does not have some fancy heat pump, or any other expensive solution.

This small specialized electric fan heater is designed just for greenhouses. It keeps my plants warm in the winter, and becomes a fan to circulate air in the summer. I LOVE it!

If you buy it with the digital thermostat (usually included, unless you specifically look for a version without it), it can be set to turn on automatically to warm to your desired temp, or to blow as a fan when it gets too hot. This gives me peace of mind that on a night where the weather suddenly dips below my desired temperature, it will turn on and keep it heated.

Q: Is it expensive to run?

A. Mine is always plugged in, and runs every night in the winter, and during most of the daylight hours in the summer. I haven’t seen a noticeable increase in my electric bill, but my whole house is electric, and frankly it’s hard to tell.

SHOP: Click here to shop the heater on Amazon

I don’t have a fence around my garden, and I do have tons of deer, squirrels, groundhogs, moles, rabbits, birds, and mice… just to name a few of the wildlife on my 16 acres that visit my garden.

It’s not easy, and I don’t always manage to keep them out! Haha!

However, I find that garden cloches (a type of basket made of willow or chicken wire) helps protect certain young plants until they get big enough for the animals to no longer bother with them.

Some plants will appeal to the animals no matter how big they get. I use hoops with bird netting over top, chicken wire fencing around certain beds, and recently I bought two motion detecting sprinklers designed to chase animals away.