Passive solar greenhouse passes ultimate test
December 8th, 2009 by Jim JustLast night (actually Tuesday morning, December 8 ) it got down to 4° F – three degrees colder than ever recorded here at the farm since we arrived in 1994 and began keeping records, and five degrees colder than the 9° F low of the previous night.
How did the passive solar greenhouse cope with record frigid temperatures? At eight in the morning, I found the door frozen shut and had to first break the ice seal with a small sledge and block. Inside, it was a relatively balmy 34° F – cold, but safely above freezing. All plants and seedlings had survived.
At 4:00 on Monday afternoon, the temperature inside the greenhouse had reached 56° F. I’ll update this post with today’s high temperature this afternoon. If we can figure out how to get the camera to communicate with the laptop, we’ll post a photo (Irina’s computer is on the fritz).
Note to self: get high/low thermometer for greenhouse.
Update 9/12: Yesterday’s high: 36°
Last night’s low: 3° (!)
Greenhouse high: 54°
Greenhouse low: 32° (whew – that was close!)
Not bad. I don’t expect we’ll ever see weather conditions like this again here, at least in my lifetime.
You can see from the satellite image below why it’s so cold here – frigid air is pouring straight from the Arctic Ocean, down across Canada to the U.S., including the west coast.
Odd – in this WordPress program, if I type the number “8? and then “close parenthesis” without a space, it shows up as a smiley face with sunglasses, like this 