Ok, thanks for the info & help, y'all! =) Like I said, i've never used one of these types of heated mini greenhouses before. I will give them another day or two to grow a little bit more, so the transplant won't kill most of them. Then, i'll trasplant them to my next stage (16 oz plastic cups) & get the near the light. I'm still gonna be worried about transplanting such young seedlings. Even gently getting them out of the seed starting mix, roots & all, they will still not be too happy to be thrown into a new home with a new potting mix. I'll just have to be extra careful, I guess. FYI, I am not using grow lights. My light source is the most powerful one on the planet (even though it's not literally on the planet...lol)...the sun. I have 2 south facing windowsills that my other tomato plants are currently doing quite well, growing on. See link below for what i'm talking about. I've set up an extra shelf of sorts behind the windowsills, but a little bit above them, height wise to put more plants on, so these will go there. Ideally, next year, i'd like to purchase an indoor lighting seedling system, but with two young kids running around, I may have to wait a few years before I can do so...lol. As it is, I have enough trouble trying to keep them out of this room! - Steve Here is a link that might be useful: Steve's Garden

engineeredgarden, I have been through your neighborhood, enjoying that zone 7 weather. Amazing anything grows in that nasty red dirt down there. I would bore you with tales of the ice and snow that I suffer, but have seen pictures of the snow you got this February. It is amazing how insidious that cold air can be, how it creeps through the smallest of holes and clutches plants in a stranglehold. I appreciate your offer to assist with my build! After seeing your power auger invention, you certainly have the technical genius combined with no fear to tackle any challenge. Pretty sure that I can build the heavily insulated structure with only a south wall exposed to sunlight with multi-wall polycarbonate or double layer bubble wrap. I am not quite sure if I can work out the thermo switch to kick on a fan to blow hot air outside, or to pull cold air inside. Do you know a source? dan_staley, even if I set my tomatoes out in early April, my soil temperatures are still 48 to 50 degrees. I am considering soil heat cables with a water wall above. Will experiment this way in addition to building the mini greenhouse for my self-watering buckets. Thanks for your input!

Hi. I'm trying to do the same with my mango. Since i live in central italy, i tink that growing a mango outside is out of question as much as is growing a mangosteen there where you live. I'd like to join the post to share some ideas about what i tought in the last year tempting to solve the problem. First: the soil temp. About 1-2 meters (3-6 feet) under the soil level the temperature is beginning to approach to average annual temperature of your location. This should be easy to know. Mine, for example, is 58,28F So, if you have a annual average temperature that allows mangosteen to grow (grow, not just survive) with just occasionals cold spell, there shouldn't be problems. If you don't, i guess the taproot will stop growing when it reaches the cooler soil. I'm not sure here, but i expect the roots in cold soild to be more rot sensitive, but is just a guess. You shouldn't need to heat the soil if your annual average temperature is high enough because, after a summer, the structure should keep the soil under the mangosteen hotter than the rest of soil. Second: the structure. In my city the winter are pretty long and cold (this year we got 15F, wrost winter in ten years, but not exceptional), but i manage to keep my greenhouse above 34F without additional heat just because i choosed the right spot to build it. It is attached to two concrete walls, one facing nord, the other facing east. Since, for me, cooler winds come from there it really saves a lot of heat during nights. I keep there mainly cactuses but last winter i overwintered mangoes there without any problem. For the mango now i'm building a removable cover with same ideas in mind. I have built a north wall with concrete blocks filled with dirt (to increase their termical mass and help them retain solar heat). Then i'll build the north side of the roof with some rock wool panels. The north side will have the 45 degree inclinatin to keep it close to a sphere (the sphere minimizes surface/volume ratio, thus the dispersion) and because at this inclination, at my latitude, it starts to do a shade in the structure just after 21 march, when solar heat is not needed as before. The south wall instead will be in policarbonate, will have 30 degree of inclination (at this inclination sun will be perpendicular to the panel during the cooler days, in january). The principes are the same of a water heating solar panel. To further help with it, i plan to put some drums filled with water inside that structure. During the day they absorb solar heat releasing it during nights. Water is better than rocks because has an higher termal mass. You can find a lot of ideas just googling "solar greenhouses": the idea is basically the same, the only difficult thing is to build it removable. Third: the additional heat. The idea of heating water isn't bad, you just need an acquarius heater. Surely it won't be bothered from humidity. I'm not going with it anyway, because i'm going to imagine that i'll need heat just in few specific hours: and waters takes a bit in heating and, when is heated to the point to quickly transport heat to air, takes a lot to cool down. Plus i'd like to consume as little energy as possible. I guess there are some calculation here to take, but to make it simple i have two suggestion. First idea: incadescence light bulb in series: if you put two of them one after another you'll have less light but they will put out a lot of infrared, wich is what you need. Second idea: there are some lamps just for heating chicks. No light, just heat. Put just a thermostat to turn them on when needed, and this should hopefully keep the tree heated. Just few ideas to add to the talk. I'm a total newbie, and, in the end, i do all this just for fun. I'm sorry for any mispell, english is not my laguage.

I have 1 last idea-Primocane Blackberries. Although you won't get blackberries as early, this is probably the cheapest way to go. All you have to do is mow the plants down right after they go dormant. Then the mulch would do. This is probably the most budget-friendly way, because blackberries can proliferate and clone themselves at lightning speeds, and it takes 3-4 years to get well established . With my experience, most blackberries can tolerate temps down to -5 degrees Farenheit, but I don't know your growing conditions, so maybe try a small experiment with the primocanes on the side. I tend to sway towards low-maintenance as much as possible