“Our Greenhouse Experiment”

 

Hot tub haven

            Back in November, I came up with the idea of taking our old, defunct hot tub and converting it into a “greenhouse” to weather some of our larger, cold sensitive plants. A little brainstorming possibilities, a run through Home Depot for supplies, and we created a cradle for our aloes and ferns.

            Checking the interior temperatures daily shows a successful experiment. The tub’s warmth, always at least ten degrees above the outside temperature, has allowed us to feel pretty confident that the plants will survive this winter safely.

               Until this yesterday.

            Outside, the cold air dipped to a little below freezing. The thermometer read in the forties. That’s probably the lowest our Aloe Vera will tolerate. The ferns, too, may survive this freezing dip if it doesn’t last too long. By this afternoon, the highs should top out in the low fifties, meaning our “greenhouse” will climb into the sixties. Once our daily highs hit the sixties again, we’ll do a visual check to make certain everything survived this snap.

Hot tub haven!

Copyright 2022 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman