Thermometers - preferably digital and remote - recommendations

[DigitalVinyl]

Last year was my first year gardening. I'm very detail oriented and I used a remote digital thermometer to monitor the temps in the garden and the main unit to moinotr temps inside where I was growing seedlings. It was a RadioShack unit and a bit costly $40-50.

However I found the remote unit was terribly inaccurate. It would read

120 degrees on any strong sunny day. I relocated to a shaded spot slighlty off the ground but it would still hit 120+ on sunny days. I don't know if it registered cold better than heat, however the lows at night were more consistent with weather forecasts.

Even now I have both side by side in front of me, the main unit says

70.3 and the remote 74.1.

Anybody have experience with more accurate ones. I like having a remote one outside, since it put it deep in the garden bed or out of reach without ahving to worry about reading it. The back of the house has a lot of stone walls, stone patio and slate walkway which all store heat, but I'm looking at gardening further away from the hosue this year, possibly behind the garage.

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound

1st Year Gardener

[madgardener]

go to Lowes and look in the Inside Lawn and Garden section. They have remote ones as well as Acutite ones that register Minimum, Maximum temperatures as well as Min and Max humidity that can be cleared out every day. It also has clock capabilities if you want it to. The humidity part is inside, by the way, but it's very accurite on temperatures inside and out. Cost is $19.97 and battery powered. The other one is around $39.97 for the remote ones. Same company. madgardener

[Joe Morris]

I found one at Walgreen's called Acu-rite that cost $20. It included the base unit and one remote sensor/thermometer. Before Christmas, it was also available at my local Wal-Mart. But I did not see them after Christmas. Extra remotes are available via the company's Web site for $16. I could not find just the remote units in stores. The base unit will monitor up to 3 remote sensors.

Regards,

Joe Morris

Please remove ZAP to email me.

[simy1]

It is a small detail for perennials that are well adapted to your site. It is a big detail, at least for veggies and tender annuals and also if you do any sort of gardening under cover. It took me two years to find out that my garden location, located in a depression of my yard which minimizes watering, was also up to 8 degrees colder (min temps) than outside my south windows. That, coupled to shadow until noon in the summer, makes it a bad location for warm weather veggies (I am a greens-oriented gardener, but it would be nice to have twice as many Brandywines, in August as opposed to Labor Day). So I really need four temperatures at my place, inside, inside the hoophouse, outside my window on the patio where I grow seedlings (one year I lost every cabbage seedling on a hot April day, even though they were outside), and in the garden. Plus soil temperature in garden and hoophouse, of course, though that varies slowly and can be measured by hand once a month.