Last year I used a small one quart crockpot to heat my mini green house it worked like a champ. The draw back was I had to frequently add water. I am shopping the thrift stores for a larger crockpot for cheap.
@@-LOL69 well last year was exceptionally cold so I ran it anytime the temp was below 40 degrees so for about a week that was 24 hours. The rest of the time about 12 hours a day.
Good idea! I’ve done exactly that inside a large cooler but using a half gallon jar of water. I was using it for producing gourmet mushrooms and needed a way to control temperature, humidity and air flow. A computer cooling fan run through a 1.5” hose and put on a timer provided the air flow. But it works great!
I love this. Thank you. I also just learned how to turn old bed sheets into silicone waterproof tarps. Much more flexible in winter. I love gardening and learning creative inexpensive ideas like this. I have an old aquarium heater somewhere in our basement.
That's a plug and play mini greenhouse. Check on line on better yet support a local small business and find one there. Hardware stores, garden shops etc. Mine wasn't big enough. I now have a 16 x 32 tunnel with my mini inside. I love the bucket heater and am headed to the basement where the old fish tank now lives. I know I've got a couple of those heaters. I still need about another 45 days before I'll get serious about the garden but it hasn't stopped me from having a tomato, pepper, and kitty grass "grow" set up under a couple of bariva lights inside.
Dan, you are providing such a great service in evaluating and recommending good products for the garden. I have been desperate to find a limited heating system that doesn't present a fire hazard, since my greenhouse is so close to my house. I was able to find a solar generator/bank to run it. The black buckets are waiting. God bless.
@@sleepy_onion4838 where can I buy the oil heater, what brand, how big is it? Where do I buy the oil for the heater? Does the oil heater get plugged into a cord that goes into the house? I'm new to all of this. But it's exactly what I need. Thanks
THAT is one of the best ideas I have seen in a long while. Plus the idea of one of your viewers suggesting a crockpot. It just has to work in the practise without a greenhouse to fall back on over the daytime .
Dan, ideas like this one is why I say You Have The Best Gardening Channel!. Thanks for All You and Alice do to inspire and encourage people to attain their gardening goals. .
I wonder if this could save someone's life. When the power goes out, a lot of people set up tents in the living room. They could pre-heat the tents when the storm starts and that heater would be easy to run with a solar power station. Hmmmm. We just went through a blizzard and people lost power. I didn't and I do have a generator and a solar power station, but some years the generators haven't started and I would only get a few hours with a space heater. This concept would give a more subtle heat source but it would be able to keep running.
Yes and if you can heat up some coals or some type heat source you can extend the heat from water a bit by heating rocks then putting the hot rocks in the water. You can reheat rocks, repeat.
That's genius Dan! I've been using space heaters for my greenhouses in the past, but a lot of them burn out in one season and pose a fire hazard. This is a much simpler/cheaper idea. Thank you for sharing!
Excellent idea, I was considering a ceramic ‘bulb’ type heater till I came across your suggestion. Guess what? Amazon is delivering mine today, just in time for tonight’s hard freeze. I’m betting your idea will work to heat my garage just enough to keep my plants alive. Keep the tips coming, I swing by your channel just for out of the box ideas like this. 🙏
Looks good. I am doing the same thing in my greenhouse, except my mini greenhouse in a corner and is surrounded on two sides with 2" foam and two sides with glass patio doors. I am using a small milk house heater, which costs around $0.10 per day. The milk house heater has a setting around 35° F and works out great. I am in a colder climate with temperatures at night down to the single digits, but usually in the teens and twenty's. Thanks for the video. It's nice to see that other people are doing similar things.
I'll give this a shot. I live next to a large lake in North Texas, still the air temperature can swing from 2 degrees F (record low last year) to 70 degrees F in the same day. I have 2 greenhouses, but still sometimes wind up sleeping with plants inside my house. I grow edible herbs in soil in tubes, which allows me to easily move everybody inside, but leaving all outside would allow me more freedom and not be tied down in Winter. Thanks for the video. New sub.
Great idea! Your cheap/free ideas keep me coming back. I love stuff like that! I wonder if adding stones or bricks to the water would help hold heat in that water and use less energy from the heater.
Hi Dan, just found your channel and I have one question, where have you been my whole life? I have been watching gardening videos for years and I just now found you. Anyway, my real question is what is the size of your back yard? You have a greenhouse, a pond, chicken run, over 40 fruit trees, and your massive garden.
Interesting idea. I wonder if you could also do something similar with a low wattage heating pad. I set up a place for our outdoor cat using a heated pet pad, which was very cheap to run, and I kept it on almost all the time during the winter. And it never got hot enough to burn an animal.
@@snowmiaow I'm pretty sure the heated pet pads would be. After all, they are for animals to use. And of course, I wasn't suggesting that you substitute a heated pad for an aquarium heater, submerged in water.
@@dodieodie498 One can protect heated pad with glas or maybe anything of stone that will keep heat longer.(support stone on sides so that it is not in direct contact with pad). Blessings! 🙏🌟
@@-whackd Are you referring to a plastic dish tub? I'm not sure if the pad that I'm thinking of would produce enough heat to keep a washtub warm, or if the wash tub would be too heavy. Maybe if the tub were placed on something to elevate it over the pad? It might make for an interesting experiment to see if it could maintain a certain temp. I wonder if the pet pad would keep a hot water bottle warm. Our cat is gone now, so I haven't used it in a while, She really did LOVE that pad.
I 💕 love your 💡 ideas. I am preparing to move into the mountains of New Mexico and go off grid. Your bucket tank heater can very successfully run on solar and wing power. Thank you !!!
I bought a 50 watt and it didn’t heat the water enough. My mini greenhouse is a bit bigger than this one of yours. So I ordered the one you said you wished you bought in 100 watts and the 5 gallon bucket shot up to 93°! This is such a great idea and I finally got my tomatoes out of the house. I’m in Seattle so it’s still too cold at night but now the greenhouse keeps my tomatoes nice and warm. Thanks for the great idea!
I live in Québec Canada zone 5, my home made greenhous have 12 feet by 20 feet last spring I put a 200 feet heater cable (roof product) in 4 inches in the ground plus a thermomètre in the ground With a -27 Celsius outside the température of the soil it between 8,4C - 9,6C and the température of the air in the greenhouse is between -5C - 5C. Spinach grow at the soil température at 0C Lettuce 4C Tomatoes 10C Now with the heater cable in the soil I can grow year around
He did mention in the video that it would be ideal if your greenhouse was in a sunny location and use a black bucket OR spray paint your white, orange, pink, or yellow bucket………. Black, so it will absorb the heat from the sun.
I just finished planting some seed trays, wrapped them up in plastic wrap and have them sitting on the freezer in the garage. It is old and is the only one that has a warm top! I checked the seeds this morning to verify enough humidity and the bottoms are slightly warm to the touch. It was in the 30's last night! It only fits three trays, so I am looking for an old twin size waterbed heater to use as a seed mat. Where there is a will, there is a way!
genius! thanks! Do you find that it is too moist in the greenhouse or does the cardboard lid work well for keeping moisture in? I wonder if putting large rocks in the bucket would help, hurt, or offer no change in the heat sink of the water?
@@mar1video That is true that water holds warmth longer, but also rocks/stones. If you noticed in older architecture, there are some very old houses with thick stonewalls...bricks jag as well...👍
@@lynnmoshansky4785 That's a very good idea! 👍If You have a big bucket you can also have some stones in it. Please be mindful about quality of the bucket..👍 Blessings 🙏🌟🕊️🌍🌎🌏
I love this idea! Last night here in NE San Antonio TX it was supposed to be only be 34 degrees, but it really went down to 29 degrees. Yesterday the high was 65! Needless to say I had uncovered my Juliette tomatoes so the plants could get plenty of sunshine. The plants don’t look good this morning. So it looks like the multiple baby Juliettes won’t make it. These tomato plants have been going good since May! I just bought a side house small green house and this fish tank warmer idea will help me leave some veggie starts outdoors. I’m a new sub. I love all of your tips and will be incorporating many of your techniques! Thank you!
What an AWESOME idea!! Would work for any number of settings!! To warm a mini greenhouse, possibly a chicken coop, rabbit hutches>>>>would need to fix it so it could not be knocked over or the heater end up being out of the water>>>>possibly combine this into some kind of continuous flow warm water so the animals don't have to drink freezing water!! Would have to have some sort of float valve to replenish water as the animals drank>>>>>>What a large number of adaptions one could make!! Thanks Dan>>>>you continue to come up with unique and novel ideas that have excellent possibilities for application!! You are pretty DARN INTELLIGENT and CREATIVE!!
There is a you tube video of a guy who waters his rabbits with rain water. It is heated with an aquarium heater. It is filtered. And is pumped with a small pump. It continuously flows from a large tank around the whole rabbitry and back to the tank.
My electric oil-filled heater lasts several years in the garage and keeps it at 40°-50° degrees, but this is a more inexpensive solution! I also love the crockpot suggestion of one of your subs, filled with mineral oil for no condensation. Thank you for your suggestions, and dedication, and for your commenters ideas as well!
I have thought of the old used crock pot but the water refill issue stopped me . I like the mineral oil suggestion . Will try that & share the results.
Could put sheet of styrofoam underneath greenhouse to insulate from cool ground. Could fill some clear garbage bags with air and place around greenhouse for more insulation. Or place mini greenhouse on top of compost pile.
Best idea insulating the ground ! My husband put black tar paper shingles against the brick wall of the house against which large windows lean making our little greenhouse. the tar paper heats the interior to 0ver 90-115F in the winter and when I left a very large earth filled clay pot inside, it also retained heat so that at the end of January, I harvested an armful of swiss chard which was planted in the ground. Amazing because chard is a tender plant and it was -25C to -13F [-13 to 8F ] at night and during the daytime as well. On a sunny day I'd shovel in snow to a depth of a foot, replace the windows, the snow would melt and water the little garden. No electricity needed. Using large water-filled soda bottles in black trash bags or painting them black will get quite hot and dissipate the heat throughout the night. Cheap and effective solution for night time heating. I'm in zone 4a.
I left a comment a few days ago & thought I would throw this out there also . Hopefully a lot of people have already had this thought . I just went to take care of my chickens & they have 5 gal buckets converted to hanging waterers. Well any way when I opened the 1st bucket to add fresh water there was a sizeable chunk of ice in it . I immediately went to this man's idea for the hanging buckets . Just a small hole in the edge of the lid to allow the cord to go thru is all that is necessary. Tiny in fact . Not only will it keep their water liquid for them it will also throw off some heat in the freezing weather . For me just another reason I like this guy , makes my brain work in a better way . All have a good day .
Terrific idea! This should help extend our season up here in Canada. I'm going to "borrow" your idea, make it our own and see how many more growing days & nights we can get. Thanks for sharing this!
What a great idea! Thanks for sharing! Just found your channel as a friend of ours shared this video! You have a new follower in us! - Brian + Erin Homesteading in The Ozarks of MO
I'm new to all of this, does the aquarium thermostat get plugged in, if so what kind of cord do you need and where do you buy it? Does the electric cord get plugged into the outlet inside your house? Thanks
Dan do you have any idea when you will have some more of the tree kale seeds? I missed out on them the other day. Thanks alot of good video here recently cant wait to get a greenhouse!
This is what radiant heat is all about . Close the bucket lid to keep the moisture to manageable level. To upscale the project : get 2 or 3 55 gallon plastic drums , electric water heater and about 300 feet of garden house . Make it a closed loop with small pump recirculating the water. Now you can start 20,000 plants.
You can also compost in your greenhouse and if you mix it correctly it will reach $140-150° will be your own little heater also. I have a 1500 gallon cistern I use to water animals and plants and my garden I'm thinking about getting an additional one and composting to keep my greenhouse warm. Let me clarify I already have the sister and I want to build a greenhouse around it and add an additional cistern. Should work like a champ!
Is that hot tub economical for heating your greenhouse? We want to do a Jacuzzi, but it won't be cheap to run. Thinking of building my own solar water heater to keep it heated. Thanks for the share always appreciated.
I was contemplating this strategy just the other day. I was thinking of combining my want for a pond with my need for a high tunnel. I may put a 300 gallon tub in a 12x12 or 12x20. With active garden-soil around all the sides of the pond it might release even more heat, though IDK.
Hi Dan, Wow what a great idea… I a green house like yours and made a mini one inside it as extra protection, I setup a fish tank heater in a 5 gallon bucket and put it in the mini hoop house for overnight extra heat. It got down to 19 deg last night and the plant held up great. Thanks :)
I'm really liking these "They Don't Want You to Know" videos. Such great ideas for saving money. Btw, I'm looking forward to planting the seeds I ordered from you!!
nice... FYI, you can get those in really big wattages too. I had a 300w. I've seen them up to 500W. You could keep a pretty big cold frame warm with that. Just watch your extension cord rating!
I had almost the same idea, without the cardboard lid. My bucket produces warm vapor, and it's almost like tropical atmosphere in my greenhouse. My asian fine herbs are growing fast and healthy, just like in their natural environment.
Hello just stumbled across your page and I really thank you for your wisdom never would have thought about doing I will be getting me a mini greenhouse so again thank you
I understand having the cardboard on top to act as a heat map for the seedling tray, but could you not remove the cardboard, and it would then heat up the entire greenhouse even further? I'm just thinking about how to keep a greenhouse warm enough during harsh winters to still be able to grow things like peppers. If I had a portable car battery with a 120v hooked to the aquarium heater in a water bucket like you have, with nothing on top of it, I imagine that would keep it nice in the greenhouse during the night?
It was -14F or -25C here near Barrie Ontario in the morning. You folks live in the tropics! Lol The Trucker Convoy came through here today! Go truckers go!
Interesting. Do they use 2 same size containers (wouldn't water get displaced and spill out?) or is inner one deeper and smaller so it rests on floor of outer one? (I hope my question makes sense). Thanks
@@moniquechurchill6857 Water in the bottom container doesn't spill out since the substrate or material in top container isn't as heavy or dense as the water beneath. Same size containers in my experience. And you really only need to fill water up maybe a 1/4 way in the bottom one. A little peroxide in the water keeps it from stinking.
I have one if those little greenhouses (57x57x77) and have been wracking my brain trying to find something for these freezing nights here in MS, zone 8a. Will this do the trick for me or will I need something bigger? I’m really excited to see this idea!
Try making an insulated box with an infra red heating bulb in it. This should heat the soil rather than the air. Try it without plants. You can alternate with a grow light during the day.
* I do not see the link for the other grow lights you referenced as the Monios are still not in stock. Can you post that or reply with the link? I have been taking so many notes for weeks and over-planning. I found your channel today and I have began my purchasing what I need for my first garden ever! Thanks for all your amazing videos.
I found your heating method quite inventive . Now go solar with a 12volt heating element from a frig . Supply it with 16-18 volts at (280watts ? ) . 16v = 2x8v . 18v . 4 6v or 1 12v and 1 or 2 6v . Batteries . On a 24v charging system . 12v + 6v+6v in series . Tape at 18 volts . Boom . Heats fast .
