Greenhouses – The Indoor Way To Enjoy Your Gardening

There is nothing to beat gardening as a hobby. It gives you a gentle workout whenever you need it. There is always plenty to get on with to keep you fit; Digging, Weeding, and Pruning. It is also an unrivalled stress and tension reliever. Not only will gardening make you live longer, it will make you look younger and keep you healthier.

Gardening as a hobby is available to everyone. If you are confined to a wheelchair, then raised beds will let you grow and tend plants. Even if you cannot see well, then brightly coloured flowers with loads of scent will help. With a Greenhouse, you can enjoy the hobby all year round, and even in bad weather.

There is nothing as satisfying as eating a tomato or carrot which you have grown from seed. Think about the satisfaction of sinking your teeth into an apple picked from a tree that you have raised from a cutting. Although you can do these things without a greenhouse, having a greenhouse makes it so much easier. You will get even more satisfaction by building your own greenhouse

With a greenhouse you should have a pest and disease-free, controlled environment. Therefore, raising plants from seeds is much easier. It also permits you to grow exotic plants, melons and grapes that would normally not survive in cooler climates. With some planning, it will give you vegetables throughout the year.

Keeping a greenhouse free from pests and diseases is of the paramount importance. There is nothing worse that have a cucumber growing beautifully one day, looking forward to harvesting it in three days time, then coming back the next day to find it totally decimated by virus or mould. There are a number of simple preventative measures that will help you to avoid that bad experience with greenhouse problems. Remember, prevention is better than cure.

Keeping everything clean is your first line of defense. You should remove and burn any plant material that shows signs of damage, white mold or fungus. Don’t allow your tools to spread diseases to other plants. Always dip secateurs and other tools in disinfectant after using them on diseased plants. Sounds simple, but many people forget this and worry that the mould is indemic.

Good ventilation will help prevent a great many of the problems.Humidity control is also greatly beneficial to controlling some greenhouse problems. Parasitic controls can be introduced to solve some pest problems.

It is always a mistake to quickly add heavy chemical controls to solve pests and diseases. The residue will last long after you have  cropped the infected plants and could cause illness. Organic and Biological controls are generally to be favoured. Often something really simple such as a grease coates yellow card hung up in the greenhouse will solve a problem.(This is actually a cure  for whitefly, which is attracted by the colour and sticks to it. A less messy way of curing white fly, however is to introduce biological control in the form of a parasitic wasp.

Don’t let all this talk of pests and diseases put you off greenhouse gardening. By using simple preventative measures, and just employing good housekeeping practices, you should have little trouble with pests and diseases.
Unless you are aiming at achieving absolut maximum crops, you can usually just accept a few loses to pests and disease, and just live with the pests naturally.