Last Wednesday my greenhouse hit 110 degrees and I lost 12 seedlings

I was so proud of my new automatic vent system, but the sensor failed around 2pm. By the time I noticed, the basil and tomatoes were just wilted messes on the soil. I spent the whole evening watering and moving trays to the shade, but those little guys never recovered. Has anyone else had a thermostat glitch ruin a whole batch? I'm about to go back to manual vents for summer.

3 comments

3 Comments

miles_young5921d ago

Oh man, that's rough. Losing 12 seedlings to a heat spike is brutal, especially when you thought you had it all figured out with the auto vents. Totally feel your pain on the thermostat glitch. Had a similar thing happen a couple years back with my humidity controller, woke up to a foggy mess and half my trays covered in mold. Sometimes the old manual way feels safer even if it's more work, you know? Hope the rest of your setup bounces back okay.

the_nathan21d ago

Man, that mold story gives me the chills. I had a similar thing happen with a cheap thermostat last spring, it lost calibration by almost 10 degrees and cooked a whole tray of pepper starts before I caught it. You're right that manual vents are a pain but at least you know they're working, you know? I started keeping a cheap digital thermometer inside the dome itself, just as a backup check, because those built-in controllers can lie to you. The worst part is when you think you've got it dialed in and nature just laughs at your plans.

carr.lee20d ago

Ain't it wild how we spend all this time trying to make things automatic so we can relax, but then the automation itself becomes another thing we gotta worry about? I feel like that's just life in general though, you fix one problem and it just spawns a whole new one.