Yes, the low tunnel covers are great over benches. Unfortunately, I have too much to cover up at the moment. In the spring when I have to do that, my seedlings are small, and I can stack them on shelves to take up less space under the cover. My plants really hate it when the leaves touch the plastic, though. Maybe it's the high humidity, but they will rot overnight. Everything is fine as long as plastic doesn't touch leaves.
And yes, it is extremely counter-intuitive that a plastic structure can be colder inside. I am still going to accept it, even though it's hard for me to understand. What I am most concerned with is trying to create a different environment in my greenhouse than the high tunnels at Cornell. I have a thick gravel floor, which helps. I also have a lot of water, humidity, and various mass filling the structure. Those things make me a little different than the typical high tunnel, so I hope those differences can help avoid the colder-than-outside phenomenon. It's fun to experiment, at any rate. I think the subject is important for high tunnel growers.
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