Where I live during the cold months of December and January the hours are limited for sun where others who might live a little more to the south would receive at least twenty five percent more sunlight than I do. There are a few changes you can make when you know your short sunlight seasons are coming and here I am going to write about a few of these.
It is not hard to determine how much sunlight you get during a day during a certain month; all you have to do is look out your wintry window. When the sunlight is shiny against the panels of your greenhouse this would be the beginning of the sun day in the greenhouse. You can also tell in the evening when the sunlight is not glimmering off of the greenhouse in the evening that your sun day is over, even if the sun has not really gone down yet. If you are getting less than ten hours of sun light a day, you need to watch your greenhouse carefully because you could actually be getting less than five hours of sun inside the greenhouse. When the days shorten, the sunshine shortens, and the growing season in your greenhouse slows.
Some of the alternatives you have when the sun is not in full swing are to use the grow lights. Using your grow lights sparingly for portions of the day will keep your bills low, and using reflective pieces of material with your grow lights will spread the lights through out the greenhouse areas as well. If you find that the sun is not enough during December and January you could easily make this your ‘between’ seasons. You could start getting ready to plant your seeds during the early and mid parts of January and then as the days start to get longer you can start to plant your seeds and make use of the solar sun for growing in your greenhouse once again.