Mother's Mini-Manual: Greenhouse Gardening
Although they're usually considered "luxuries,” greenhouses are, in fact, wonderful, year-round gardens that can be useful for producing vegetables for the kitchen table or the local market.
November/December 1976
By the Mother Earth News editors
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PHOTO COURTESY OF LORD & BURNHAM
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Although they're usually considered "luxuries" far beyond the means of ordinary folks, greenhouses are, in fact, wonderful, year-round gardens that can be either as extravagant and costly or as utilitarian and inexpensive as you want to make them.
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If rich Uncle Harry plans to lay a $10,000 Christmas present on you this year, there are worse things to ask for than a superlavish "store-bought" greenhouse complete with automatic heaters, ventilating system and plant feeders.
On the other hand, we've seen a really nifty do-it-yourself greenhouse constructed entirely of lumber and old storm windows salvaged from a town dump. Total cost: Fifteen bucks' worth of miscellaneous hardware and less than a week of spare-time labor.
And if space is your problem, remember that a small greenhouse will fit onto a city terrace or a rooftop. There are even mini-models designed to turn an ordinary house or apartment window into a miniature Garden of Eden.
There's no longer any excuse, then, for thinking that "only the other guy" deserves or can afford some kind of greenhouse. Someway, somehow, you can afford one too! And if you like to garden (or if you have to garden to make ends meet), you deserve this so-called luxury just as much as anyone else does!
So here's a Christmas bonus: Mother Earth News' Complete Manual for the Greenhouse Grower. Twelve pages packed with excerpts and summaries from some of the world's best books on the subject (plus a few of our own tips and hints), all designed to acquaint you with the basics of "gardening under glass."
You can always go on to other sources of information after you finish this primer, and we hope you will. But if, for some reason, you can't, here's everything you really need to know to make a far-better-than-average start in greenhouse gardening.
And remember: Once you've experienced the joy of harvesting fresh produce in the dead of winter, once you've tallied up the savings that it can make on your grocery bill, and once you've added in the cash income that you might earn from selling fresh vegetables, fruits and flowers at premium prices when others are doing without, you just may find that the greenhouse you thought would be such a luxury has, in fact, turned out to be a real dividend-paying investment!
BUILDING AND MAINTAINING A GREENHOUSE
COST
The cost of a greenhouse can be roughly divided into [a] the initial investment for the unit's construction and [b] the ongoing expense of its maintenance and operation.
The initial investment can range all the way from ridiculously low (if you build your greenhouse from recycled materials) through moderate (there are several small, prefab, fiberglass-panel, wooden frame, freestanding kits (less foundation) on the market) to very expensive (the sky can be the limit for big, aluminum-frame, all-glass, contractor-built units with automated heating, venting, watering, etc., systems).
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