Sunshine in a Trashcan

Oh oh oh oh oh
I ain't happy,
I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine in a bag
I'm useless but
Not for long
The future is coming on

-- Clint Eastwood, The Gorillaz

I am hoping to have sunshine in a trashcan.  My hubby and I set up a 32 gallon black, trashcan in the north corner of my little greenhouse Friday night.  This sounds like a dumb thing to do; it was thirty five degrees outside and drizzling.  My fingers felt pretty numb as we dipped buckets of water into the rain barrel and filled the can.  When it was almost full we secured the lid.  Now we’re waiting for Sunday when the temperature is supposed to reach fifty, and sunshine is on the agenda all day.

I am thinking about the future, the very near future.  My agastache trays have long roots dangling from the bottoms, and the roots of the blue love grass are starting to poke through the peat trays as well.  I don’t know for sure, but I think this is the sign I’ve been waiting for that they need to be transplanted into bigger pots.  I’m anxious to get them outside in the greenhouse and move the blue fescue, which germinqted very nicely this week up to the grow light.  The only problem is that February has just begun, and the temps in the greenhouse are way too low. 

I first started considering trashcan heating for my greenhouse after reading a post in a wonderful blog that I enjoy:  http://naturalgardening.blogspot.com/search/label/cold%20houses

Of course, the method referenced is used in a university's experimental cold house.  The design is probably more sophisticated and sound than my dubious "Sunshine in a Trashcan" method, but I have to start the learning process somewhere.

After I read the post, I started researching the idea.  I found a University of Missouri publication that reported on the use of black barrels for the passive heating of greenhouses, which is where I got the idea to place the barrel on the north side of the greenhouse:  http://aes.missouri.edu/swcenter/research/solarghbarrel.pdf

And yet another website mentioned there should be a gallon of water for every two square feet

http://greenmethods.com/site/weblog/2007/10/cut-greenhouse-heating-costs-with-water/

I’m thinking that my 48 square feet of greenhouse will be adequately heated by 32 gallons.  We’ll see.  At the moment, it just appears that I have a useless trashcan sitting in my greenhouse, but hopefully, not for long.