[Orchidflowerchild]

Oh yes, I know. This isn't my first time around the greenhouse block. I have been in the orchid game for a while, after all.

Then again, our average coldest night of the year is only in the upper 20's F, and even so, only a few nights like that happen every year. Our biggest worry here is more about the high temps in summer. I'm going to let it get through the first cold snap and see how well it holds heat, then decide it I want to go through all the trouble of putting up the bubble wrap.

Mostly, that's because I don't want to have to go searching through the barn at my parents' for the rolls of bubble wrap I used on my first GH.

Honestly, I've had more problems in similarly covered greenhouses with the temps getting too high. Haing an 80-odd degree days that result in a 90-odd temp in the GH. I'm willing to pay a little more for the heating for the 12 or so days that I will really need it, so as to avoid cooking things when the sun decides to just beat down on a winter's day. My first GH had a similar exposure, and I cooked a couple plants because it rocketed up to 95F inside the GH once the sun hit it. It had been all tightly wrapped for the 30F night, and boy, it got warm that day.

I only wish the weather here was consistent enough to batten down the greenhouse hatches. It gets kinda hairy if you get a solid week of cold (we often do in Feb or Mar), but it is not uncommon to see the 80's well into december. So far this fall, our lowest night has been 38f. I don't expect we should see a hard freeze before the end of November, and by then only one or two light frosts. I'm climate Zone 8, after all. Miami is only Zone 10. We're marginal to Zone 9, honestly. About even, latitudinally to Tampa, Florida.

-Cj