Comments on: Can Milk Jugs Help Grow Tomatoes?

By: Amy @ Homestead Revival

Amy @ Homestead Revival — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:04:25 +0000

I like this idea… but I agree, black would absorb more heat during the day. When we camped in the desert of Mexico (yes, we seriously did this as crazy as it sounds), we used some kind of black bag for shower water which we filled each morning with water, left them in the sun, and then had warm water for a shower in the evening (we were doing construction work and very dirty). I don’t know if paint would actually work on the jugs, but maybe black garbage bags filled with water would work.

By: cklimen

cklimen — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:23:43 +0000

Very cool idea.
I wonder, would adding antifreeze to the water help it to retain heat?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:29:15 +0000

Yes I would agree painting the jugs black would work better. You could also increase the heat capacityof your greenhouse by puting dark stone in areas where you can’t put water, like walkways. Also peat and rubber have pretty high heat capacities.

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:45:35 +0000

I’ll post some pictures after we move in, but the house that we just bought has a green house with this kind of heating system. There are large steel drums filled with water under the germination bench on the back wall (northern wall) of the greenhouse. They are painted black to absorb more heat. The previous owner thought this worked quite well to maintain a warmer temperature at night.