- Remote Weather Sensor – put a sensor in the greenhouse so you can monitor from the comfort of your home. This is clutch when the weather starts to warm in spring so you can go out and adjust the temperature using manual vents, opening the top of the dutch door, and setting your heat-activated roof vents. Some will also tell you the relative humidity in the greenhouse (your goal is 45-55% which is best for most crops) so this will give you insight about whether you need to water.
- Soil Thermometer – this little tool is great for knowing whether now is the time for direct seeding or for transplanting bedding plants. After I got mine, I tested soil all over the place and learned pretty quickly where the hot and cold zones of my garden are.
- Fan – whether it’s to help move hot air out of your greenhouse at the peak of summer or to help prevent mildew during a damp season, a fan in the greenhouse is your friend. Remember to keep a couple vents open while the fan is running otherwise you’re just moving hot air around a confined space…kind of like a convection oven and you don’t want that. Neither do your plants.
- Heat Source – prairie Canadians are no stranger to sudden frosts. There is no month of the year that doesn’t have some recorded snow fall! So you will likely want something to help take the edge off. It can be an external heat source or even passive solar heat. Passive solar heat is cheap and easy: concrete stepping stone or even barrels or jugs of water in the greenhouse will absorb heat all day long and then slowly release it, cooling off as the sun goes down. If you’ve got higher needs than that, you could introduce an electric heater – and a temperature alarm. Note that combustion heat sources will create ethylene which will kill your plants. Avoid that, obvs.
- Long Arm Watering Wand and a Good Hose – you’re going to water every day, sometimes more. You want to water the soil, not the plant so having a watering wand on the business end of your hose will get that water down to soil level without breaking your back.
