I'm a 2nd year gardener and am just now building a small 6x9' greenhouse onto the side of a shed. I've got some indoor starts that are beginning to take up a lot of space (my okra is ~9" tall!), and I'm anxious to start using the greenhouse. But I really don't know anything about a greenhouse environment and I'm concerned about killing all my starts - up til now they've been spoiled in my diy indoor greenhouse.
My question is how to avoid killing plants when I move them out of the house? I'm particularly curious about:
- What are the lowest temperatures that I can safely keep plants at?
- How much wiggle room do things like draped row-cover give me?
- Do the plants need to be hardened off as part of the transition?
- How can I learn which plants are more/less vulnerable to lower temperatures?
- Is there any good reading on this topic, online or otherwise?
I live in northern Vermont and our last frost days is around mid-May. I don't have any heat source or electricity in the greenhouse - though I could run an extension cord out there if it's really necessary. This isn't a particularly insulated greenhouse; it's airtight, but there's a lot of single-pane glass.
