Managing Greenhouse Gardening
To achieve success in greenhouse management it is necessary to maintain temperature controls, correct ventilation, and efficient watering systems.
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Avoid any low-lying ground that is prone to becoming a frost pocket or may be susceptible to getting waterlogged.
Water is a really important part of managing your greenhouse gardening and maintaining a regular supply of water one of the essential aspects to achieve success through all stages of plant growth.
You will find that watering by hand with a watering can is unlikely to be always possible, will be a real hassle, and as the plants grow it will be difficult and time consuming to maintain their water requirements in this way.
Automatic watering will achieve a successful result, improved quality of plants, and absolutely save you a lot of time and work in your greenhouse management.
Trickle Irrigation
Trickle irrigation involves a pipe being laid close to the plants with drip nozzles that continually release a steady water supply and it is suited to plants of all sizes. You can also add a liquid fertiliser to trickle irrigation enabling the plants to benefit from both water and fertiliser at the same time.
Capillary Irrigation
The principle behind capillary irrigation is that the plant pot should stand on something like continually wet sand. The compost in the pot should then be able to soak up a continuous supply of water with the result being a healthy plant. This method is really only suitable for seedlings and plants that are small and grown on the greenhouse staging.
There are different capillary systems on the market that function through methods such as;
Water from a mains supply is stored in a tank that has a ball-valve fitted.
The water from the tank runs into a trough at the side of the staging. A wick draws the water from the trough into a sand tray.
An alternative to the sand tray is a system involving placing the pots on absorbent mats that take water from the same tank system as that described above.
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The nature of greenhouses makes their atmosphere warm and damp, an ideal place for fungus diseases to flourish. Without appropriate ventilation the air inside would get stagnant, the plants would get diseased, and success would be unlikely.
To make sure your greenhouse ventilation allows an adequate air flow in warm weather, you really need a minimum of two ventilators in the roof and at least one at a low level. Additional to that it is good if the door has a hatch fitted at a low level that can be opened, and/or the door can be propped ajar on hot days to allow the air to flow freely.
A greenhouse fan is also very good at keeping the air flowing, or an electric fan heater with the heat element switched off.
You can relieve some of the hard work and attention you have to give to monitoring and changing the ventilation by having automatic ventilation installed.
The choices include a vent opener that is sensitive to any changes in temperature. It will automatically open or close accordingly. Another alternative is an electric extractor fan with a thermostat control that reduces condensation by providing a continuous gently movement of air.
Although fans like these may be cheap to run and fairly easy to install they will obviously need a mains supply or, the environmentally friendly solar powered ventilation version.
You can get solar power greenhouse management equipment.
The initial outlay may be more costly but it would no doubt be a long term investment for heating and automatic vents.
Having a solar greenhouse would also give you more options on siting greenhouses as presumably they wouldn’t have to be near your house for connecting to mains electric.