Weather The Storm

Vegetables, ornamental plants and flowers can all be cultivated in greenhouses, if the climate conditions don’t allow for outdoors gardening. Yet, not every gardener can afford to create the greenhouse of his/her dreams, and therefore green house gardening becomes a privilege in so many cases. Here are the most general lines that define this occupation.

1.The greenhouse is a chamber of plastic or glass that allows the light to get through to the plants while providing enough warmth to allow for the harmonious development regardless of the external weather conditions. Green house gardening is challenging by the high number of activities required to keep the green house operational.

2.Containers, hanging baskets and regular beds can be extensively used for green house gardening purposes. Whether the facility is lucrative or decorative, the size matters very little. The cultivation of plants all year round seems simpler than ever when the flowers, plans and vegetables do not get exposed to the direct action of the elements.

3.There are many purposes for green house gardening. Some people want to extend the availability of seasonal crops such as strawberries or tomatoes for instance. Others just want to cultivate plants that are sensitive to the cold weather or they try to get good seeds. And finally, some make a hobby out of the cultivation and display of rare plants.

There are three types of green house gardening usually depending on the temperature of the controlled atmosphere inside the chamber.

-Cold green house gardening is pretty cheap but limited. It depends on the accumulation of heat inside the greenhouse in summer thus accelerating the growth of the crops inside. In very humid weather, such greenhouses trap a lot of humidity inside which could be detrimental to the plants.

-Cool green house gardening is much more common. Normally a steady temperature is preserved by using some sort of heating system. Many plants are thus capable to resist throughout winter without any inconvenience. The temperature inside is around 45F

-One final category here is warm green house gardening that requires temperatures of around 55F and above. Warm greenhouses are more specialized and they are generally used in professional gardening.

Besides the brief description provided here, you can read more in depth materials about each of the categories.

Related Reading:

Greenhouse Gardening: Step by Step to Success (Crowood Gardening Guides)

The Botanical Magazine, Or, Flower-Garden Displayed: In Which the Most Ornamental Foreign Plants, Cultivated in the Open Ground, the Green-House, and ... in Their Natural Colours ..., Volumes 11-12

Kennedy Green House: Designing an Eco-Healthy Home from the Foundation to the Furniture

The Greenhouse Expert (Expert Series)

Greenhouse Gardener's Companion: Growing Food & Flowers in Your Greenhouse or Sunspace

You can grow vegetables in the middle of wintertime utilizing greenhouse vegetable gardening methods. To grow vegetables in a greenhouse is almost the same as growing them outdoors throughout the summertime. There are just a few additional things you must do to imitate what nature would do naturally.

There are two different techniques of making use of a portable greenhouse. One is known as the cold greenhouse method and that’s when just the sun throughout the day gives the greenhouse its warmth. The temperature at night typically goes down to about 45 degrees at the coldest and heat does kick on when it gets very cold outside. No growing takes place in this kind of greenhouse, however you can maintain many plants that will come back in the summertime such as rosemary.

To cultivate vegetables in a garden greenhouse in the wintertime you need warmth and therefore you would use the warm greenhouse method. This technique does tend to cost a bit of money since the least temperature that can be maintained is 55 degrees F and this means that a heating system has to be available. The majority of heating systems for greenhouses are either gas, propane or electric.

Most vegetables can be grown in a greenhouse. There are a few types of each vegetable that are available in plants developed specifically for greenhouse growing. Look in seed catalogs to find those varieties. You want to try to find types that will flourish in cooler temperatures than usual. You also want to find kinds that are more compact since room is at a minimum in a greenhouse.

An essential natural activity that must be carried out artificially is pollination. Insects, particularly bees, do not dwell inside. An example of pollinating a vegetable effortlessly is done by pollinating tomatoes. Tomato vines need to be tied to stakes made of bamboo and when the flower is ready the stakes should be tapped both in the morning and at nighttime. You’ll know the flower is ready when the petals start to curve backwards. Pay close attention to this since there are just three days that the flowers will be producing pollen to pollinate the vegetable.

Sunlight must be given to your plants during the winter when the days are shorter and sunlight is at a minimum. The rule is to supply plants with at least eight hours of sunlight a day. Fertilizer and water are also essential to the health of your greenhouse plants.

Growing vegetables in a greenhouse in the winter may be a little more challenging and time consuming, however the results can be amazing. Just think of going out to the greenhouse mid January and picking a tomato right off the vine. You will have a small taste of summertime in the dead of wintertime.

Related Reading:

Gardening For Dummies - UK Edition

GREENHOUSE GARDENING

The Week-By-Week Vegetable Gardening Handbook: Make the Most of Your Growing Season

Building Your Own Greenhouse (Greenhouse Basics)

RHS Vegetable and Fruit Gardening

If you like growing your own flowers, small vegetables, and herbs, a window greenhouse is a good choice. Fresh fruits and vegetables in addition to fragrant flowers will be available to you throughout all seasons. You can rapidly and easily make any window into a mini-greenhouse, however most individuals opt to use their kitchen window. Unlike garden greenhouses, greenhouse windows need just a little bit of wall space and have the ability to let in lots of light while still leaving lots of room for plants.

A greenhouse window is square in shape and is specifically made to protrude from the house in which it’s installed. It comprises a roof that inclines down from the back end and also has front and side walls. A greenhouse window with adjustable shelves is a good alternative. You will need to select between vinyl and aluminum when you are putting your mini greenhouse together.

Vinyl windows are more impervious to moisture than aluminum windows are. Vinyl shows less absorption as compared to aluminum, creating more heat for your plants. To add strength, vinyl greenhouse windows usually have aluminum frames. These structures practically take care of themselves. Since an aluminum greenhouse window is heavy and strong on the outside, it is able to accommodate a solid wood interior. Aluminum exteriors which are anodized need almost no upkeep. With either of these two kinds of windows, they normally have rounded corners that makes it both simple to keep clean and aesthetically pleasing.

The design ought to permit ample light to reach the plants, so be sure to determine the perfect location for the most sun possible. If you are living in the northern hemisphere it makes the most sense to optimize sunlight in your greenhouse by having the window on the south or east side. As well, the topography and surroundings of the greenhouse will influence the amount of sunlight that reaches the interior.

If you want to turn your window into a greenhouse you must measure the level of afternoon and morning light first. If the window you are considering is not the best for natural sun, you might want to consider making use of fluorescent lighting. This somewhat counteracts the function of a greenhouse window, however they can be useful on cloudy days.

Installing a greenhouse window allows you to both open up the space of a room as well as bringing in extra light. You’ll be able to enjoy fresh herbs to complement your dinners, and breathe in the fabulous aromas and gorgeousness of plants all year long. These benefits show the appeal of adding a windowsill greenhouse to your home.

Related Reading:

Gardening in Your Greenhouse (Greenhouse Basics)

RHS Gardening Through the Year: Your Month-By-Month Guide to what to do when in the Garden

GREENHOUSE GARDENING

Your Window Greenhouse

How to Build Your Own Greenhouse

Before you go ahead and buy that expensive greenhouse, why not look into the cheaper option of building your own greenhouse, or even buying a much cheaper portable greenhouse. There are many positive points for building your own greenhouse beyond the fact that it is a lot less expensive.

If you are building your own greenhouse then you can perfectly fit the space that you have available, instead of compromising with the available sizes of standard greenhouses. Rectangular and octagonal are the most common greenhouse shapes.Even Greenhouse sizes seem to have been standardised by the manufacturers. You can adjust the size to fit the odd shaped space you have available, if you build your own. You may need to think carefully about making full use of the interior space, if you choose an unusual shape or size, but there is really no reason why you should not do it.

Building your own greenhouse does not need more than average DIY skills. There are a number of plans to build a greenhouse  that you can buy which will give you all the information you need. If you are a reasonably god handiman, then you can even adapt these plans to make use of materials you have lying around the garden.

Before embarking on your project, there are a number of things to which you should give some consideration. Where are you going to place your greenhouse?. It should not be shaded by trees or your house, since the sun will help it to warm, especially in autumn and spring when you need to grab all the extra heat you can. If you site it near to the house then it will make for easier access, especially in inclement weather, and it will also be easier to provide water and electricity. During inclement weather, your greenhouse comes into its own. You can always work indoors instead of outside!

When you get your plans for your greenhouse, you need to look at them carefully to ensure you have all the tools you will need to finish the project. If you do not have them, then often you can hire them or even borrow them from friends and relatives when the time come. Do make preparations before you start to build, there are a great many half finished projects which have never been completed because the right tools were not available and the builder lost interest or confidence to finish it. You don’t want half a greenhouse in your garden.

There are many places you can buy plans for building a greenhouse. Do a search online to start with. So, look at plans for building your greenhouse, be sure they give you all the information you will need to complete the project. Then think about it carefully, before you start. The satisfaction from raising plants in your greenhouse is immense, and is even better knowing that you built it yourself.

Related Reading:

How to Build Greenhouses: Walk-In, Window, Sun House, Garden Tool House

Growing Under Glass (Royal Horticultural Society's Encyclopaedia of Practical Gardening)

Alan Titchmarsh How to Garden: Greenhouse Gardening

How To Build & Use Greenhouses

Conservatory and Greenhouse Gardening (Collins Practical Gardener)

Gardening in a greenhouse can be fun but if a disease hits, it can be worrying. First, what is wrong with your plants ? and secondly how do you cure it without having a detrimental effect on the balance of nature that you have created in your Greenhouse?.

There are six main diseases you are likely to encounter, as well as any diseases specific to the plant types you are raising.

Greenhouse supply companies, nurseries, and garden centers will always give advice about specific problems you may be having

Damping Off In The Greenhouse

Damping Off is the most likely problem to be faced by the new greenhouse gardener. It is a fungal disease affecting seedlings and shows as a blackened area at the base of the stem. However, you may never see this effect. Affected plant just topple over and die. The first thing you know about it is when your young healthy seedlings just keel over and die. There is no cure, since your plants are already dead. Prevention, however, is possible. Sometimes the disease is carried in the soil and you should steralize the soil by heating to kill it. Always steralize pots and trays before use. Raising the temperature in the greenhouse can help, as can sowing more thinly, and watering less.Some gardeners add fungicide to watering to stop the spread if they have encountered this problem.

Botrytis In The Greenhouse

The more common name for this disease is grey mould. Symptoms for this common Fungal disease are a grey-brown or dirty white mould on stems and leaves. You may have already met this disease since it also afects plants grown in the garden.Botrytis grows in low temperatures and poor ventilation. Affected parts should be removed, since they will not recocer.Infected parts should be burned and never put on the compost. Then increase the temperature in your greenhouse and provide better ventilation.

Mildew In The Greenhouse

Mildew is a white powdery coating on leaves which causes them to pucker and become distorted. Affected leaves will not recover, so remove them as son as you see affected leaves and burn them. Leaving them on or around the plant will encourage the disease to spread. Unlike Damping Off and Botrytis, mildew is most likely to occur if the soil is to dry, so make sure your plants never go short of water. Adding dispersible sulpfer or copper fungicide when watering will help to contain any widespread mildew infection.

Blight In The Greenhouse

Blight is shown as brown marks on fruit and leaves. The marks may spread and turn black. Immediately remove and burn all parts of plants that exhibit symptoms. If the disease persists, spray with copper fungicide.

Leaf Mould In The Greenhouse

Leaf Mould causes yellow spots and a brown mould to appear on the leaves. Poor ventilation is the most likely caise. Improve ventilation by adjusting vents, and give your plants much more space.

Virus Diseases In The Greenhouse

Many plants, such as cucumber and tomato can be affected by virus diseases. They can cause a number of symptoms among them yellow mottling of the leaves and a “ferny” appearance in your leaves. Sometimes leaves will appear to wilt, then recover and do it again regularly. Affected plants will lose vigour and will crop poorly.
There is no cure! So dig up and burn affected plants. If you get virus attacks on plants set in the ground, then you should use growbags for a few years. Virus disease is spread by insects, garden tools and by hand, so be extra careful about hygene.

Diseases in the greenhouse can be devastating, and we all get them from time to time. But, If you regularly check over your plants,keeping an eye out for symptoms, you should be able to take early action to stop a widespread infection. Good housekeeping, together with the right watering and ventilation routine will prevent most problems. So don’t be too concerned. Enjoy your greenhouse gardening and deal with problems as they come.

Related Reading:

A Climate Management System for the Control of Fungal Diseases in Pe-Greenhouses in Cyprus (Technical bulletin)

Soil Treatments for the Control of Diseases in the Greenhouse and the Seedbed (Cornell Extension Bulletin. no. 217.)

Managing Diseases In Greenhouse Crops

Growing Under Glass (Royal Horticultural Society's Encyclopaedia of Practical Gardening)

Exotics are Easy