Mother's Mini-Manual: Greenhouse Gardening

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

(For tips on more intensive planting, see "Home Garden's Experts Design a Vegetable Mini-Garden for $10" in Mother Earth News, No. 27, Page 40, "More Food From Less Land" in Mother Earth News, No. 15, Page 38, and "How to Make Money With Midget Vegetables" in Mother Earth News, No. 19, Page 31.)

THOSE SPECIAL PLANTS²

Shelves can be arranged around the walls of the greenhouse to hold special plants in pots. Sitting in the corners, and at any odd space, can be small tubs with dwarf lemon and fig trees. These can be easily moved around as required. In one corner could be a circular pyramid of ever-bearing strawberries. Flowers can be kept in pots on the shelves. While cantaloupe and watermelon plants take up a lot of room, they are low to the ground and can be grown around such tall plants as tomatoes and pole beans. The melon plants also produce repeatedly, thus making the space allotment more profitable than with some single-bearing crops.

HOW MUCH TO PLANT?²

In planning your greenhouse garden, keep in mind that in order to have a constant supply of fresh food, you will need to be in a constant state of growing, planting and harvesting. For example, radishes will be ready to eat in twenty days and will remain sweet and tender for about ten more days. Thus you should only plant as many radishes as your family will eat in a ten-day period. Then two weeks later, you should plant the same amount of radishes again. For the average family a single row of radishes four feet long, planted every two weeks, will keep the family in a constant supply of fresh, tender and succulent radishes. You will have some radishes which you are just finishing, others which are just about ready and others which have just been planted. Another example would be carrots which could be planted in a six- to eight-foot row, and replanted every month. This will keep the average family in fresh young carrots constantly. Some plants reproduce over and over and last a long, long time. Two or three pepper plants will keep a family in peppers for longer than a year. Four tomato plants will supply a family with all of the tomatoes they can use for a year. Ten new tomato plants should be started as the original plants begin to bear. When the new plants begin to bear, the old ones can be removed. As plants get older their foliage gets larger, and it takes more of their energy to feed themselves rather than to produce fruit. Even though plants continue to produce for a long time, if the plant itself keeps getting larger and larger (as with the tomato vine) it is wise to replace them every four months.

(For a great deal of information that will help you plan your greenhouse crop, see the "Vegetable Planting Chart" in Mother Earth News, No. 2, Page 32.)

REGULATING THE GREENHOUSE ENVIRONMENT

HUMIDITY³

Many amateur greenhouse growers — and some commercial growers — are not aware of the effects that humidity has on plants. It's very important to maintain the proper relative humidity to get the right kind of growth of fruits, flowers, leaves and roots. The relative humidity in the greenhouse should be about 60 percent. (This is much higher, by the way, than the humidity of the average home, which runs between 12 and 20 percent.)

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print

GET MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

MULTI-PURPOSE GREENHOUSE BLUEPRINT'

Blueprint

Our Price: Price: $10.00

• Browse DIY Garden &Yard Project Plans

BACKYARD GREENHOUSE BLUEPRINT'

MEN Plans

Blueprint

Our Price: Price: $25.00

• Browse Blueprints