The Heirloom Garden Blog

by Matthew Martins

Even a small green­house opens up new gar­den­ing hori­zons — from orchids to early veg­eta­bles. With equip­ment in ready sup­ply it’s pos­si­ble to cre­ate a com­plete con­trolled grow­ing envi­ron­ment which will run on auto pilot.

One of the biggest advan­tages of a green­house is that it frees a gar­dener from depen­dence on the weather. Inside the hot­house, under cover of glass (or plas­tic) you can grow plants which would suf­fer badly from the rain, wind and cold if grown outside.

Green­houses can be heated or unheated. An unheated green­house offers no pro­tec­tion against frost, but it will pro­vide your plants with more warmth dur­ing the grow­ing sea­son. The extra heat trapped by the green­house speeds up the ripen­ing period and pro­duces bet­ter flow­ers from dec­o­ra­tive plants. Unheated green­houses also offer pro­tec­tion against the ele­ments — wind and rain — and shield your crops from attack by birds, pests and animals.

A major advan­tage of green­houses is that they extend the grow­ing sea­son. Plants can start grow­ing early in spring, and either be kept in the green­house or later trans­ferred to the gar­den. In the green­house they will con­tinue grow­ing well into fall.

This length­ened grow­ing sea­son is achieved by the heat of the sun being trapped by the glass or plas­tic cov­er­ing dur­ing spring, and, in the fall, warmth accu­mu­lated in the soil and brick­work dur­ing the hot sea­son is released back into the greenhouse.

A typ­i­cal use of unheated green­houses is to grow toma­toes dur­ing spring and sum­mer, and, in fall, when the toma­toes have been dis­carded, late flow­er­ing chrysan­the­mums can be cul­ti­vated to brighten the approach of win­ter. It’s also quite com­mon nowa­days for gar­den­ers to grow grapes and mel­ons in unheated greenhouses.

Unheated green­houses are also suit­able for a wide range of half-hardy shrubs, lilies, glad­i­oli, annu­als, and other bulbs which will pro­duce the finest blooms.

Let­tuces, radishes, French beans, car­rots, pota­toes, and all out-of-season veg­eta­bles which are nor­mally grown in cloches or frames are equally suited to grow­ing in unheated greenhouses.

About the Author

Matthew Mar­tins is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to Greenhousesblog.com — for infor­ma­tion on all aspects of hobby green­houses visit http://www.greenhousesblog.com today!