If you are in South Central Alaska with our short growing season gardening is a challenge. Those of you gardeners in Canada, the Northern states, and mountain regions have the same problem. You can have many warm sunny 70 degree days in May but still drop below freezing on clear nights. Your climate may differ, but our average late frost date is about May 20 so moving tender seedlings outdoors is not recommended before the end of May. Keeping track of your weather is critical to plant outside as soon as possible and get a decent crop before it turns cold again in September. Many seeds will not germinate until the soil warms up and some warm season vegetable will not set fruit if it is too cool. Most serious gardeners have a greenhouse of some type to help extend the growing season.
My Vantage Pro2 Wireless Weather Station
A professional home weather station with an Internet connection will allow you to keep track of your low and high temperatures, rain, barometric pressure, and wind. With a Smart Phone App you can monitor your weather conditions online from almost anywhere. With a desktop program you can set up graphs for temperature, wind, and rain. You can embed a Weather widget into your blog or website to show your home weather station current conditions.
So during the winter of 2008 I found a good deal at Costco and got one. It was a Honeywell model TE831W-2 home weather station pictured below. It had 2 remote temperature sensors, barometer, wind gauge, and rain gauge. I was able to monitor the temperature in my greenhouse over the internet while I was at my night shift job. That station worked for a few years and then crashed and Honeywell quit making them or updating the software.
Old Honeywell Weather Station
This involved connecting the base unit to a computer and required having the computer running all the time uploading my data to the WEB that let me monitor and share my data online. This Software only worked on Windows XP so it is no longer safe to use and there are no updates. The base unit continued to operate and it was interesting to keep an eye on our local weather conditions but I was not able to save data on a computer or share data online. I did gather some good micro-climate data from my property. Time for a new weather station...
You can shop online to see what is available and will fit your needs. You should review many weather options. I chose Davis Instruments Company and I highly recommend their products. They have been making professional weather stations for farmers and climate research for a long time. I decided to get their Vantage Pro 2 weather station and I highly recommend this unit for any serious gardener.
You can also purchased their wireless base station that connects to your router and allows you to monitor your station over the Internet with a smart phone or any web browser.
You can also purchase an extra data transmitter and temperature sensor to put inside your Greenhouse. It is very helpful to monitor and compare the outdoor temperature with the temperature inside your greenhouse. Any unheated greenhouse will lose heat as soon as the sun goes down. You can monitor your high and low temperatures 24 hours each day. Plotting on a graph with clock time allows you to determine how many hours you will need to add extra heat. Then you can evaluate the best heat source for your conditions and if it is economical. With many warm sunny days in May it can be very tempting to move your plants out into the garden too early and by keeping track you will know when to add a extra heat if necessary.
3 Day temperature Chart
This chart shows a 3 day record red = outdoor and green = greenhouse temperature. On May 19th the overnight low was 32 F and probably would have damaged sensitive seedlings if they were planted outdoors. I use a small electric space heater in my greenhouse that will add about 10-20 degrees F and protect my young plants.
You can also look at any past weather data from last month or last year and compare your local data with other home weather stations in your area. This can be very helpful to any serious gardener. It is possible that your home overnight low temperature may just be colder than other stations just a few miles away. A good home weather station is a very important investment for any serious gardener and is really worth the cost.
For those on a limited budget. A 24 hour wireless remote thermometer is less expensive and will at least let you monitor your low and high greenhouse temperature from inside your house. This ThermoPro model has a 200 ft range. You can find everything you need on my Alaska Grow Buckets Weather Station Page.
