The Benefits Of A Cold Greenhouse
I have gained so much pleasure from my greenhouse, that I would heartily recommend that every gardener should have one. Even if you feel that the cost of heating a Greenhouse or indeed the cost of green house kits is too prohibitive, a cold greenhouse is still very useful indeed. By a cold greenhouse, we usually mean a greenhouse that id not artificaially heated during the winter.. Also, other than by using shading and ventilation it is not artificially cooled in the high summer.
A cold greenhouse will save you money and enlarge the number of plants that you can grow successfully. Greenhouse gardening need not be expensive. Even without the use of artificial heating it will protect tender plants from the wind and you can extend the growing season because of the heat that is stored from the early and late summer sunshine.Therefore plants will grow for a longer season if grown in a cold greenhouse than if grown outdoors; and you will be able to reliably successfully grow semi tropical fruit and vegetables such as melon and peppers, not to mention tomatoes and cucumbers.
Instead of going out and buying bedding plants, you can easily germinate and raise seeds in the cold greenhouse in large enough numbers that you will have plenty to sell or share with friends and neighbours.
Taking cuttings and raising them is often easier in the greenhouse, although many cuttings are better raised outdors in shaltered areas, as greenhouses do tend to become rather warm in the summer.
Sweet corn seed needs warmth to germinate (as do many other seed including tomatoes) so sowing them in a cold greenhouse helps no end. You effectively extend the growing season by getting started with the seed sowing that bit earlier. And remember, The sugar in sweet corn starts to change to starch as soon as it is harvested, so the sooner it is cooked the better. You can (and if you are a keen gardener probably have) raised seeds on your window sills. Your seedlings become very leggy, and always bending towards the light unless you are continually rotating them. Because the light comes from all round them in a greenhouse, this does not happen.
So if you haven’t tried a Greenhouse, it will pay its own way in a short time and will increase your sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in gardening. So build a greenhouse now.
