Greenhouse Gardening

On a frosty March morning the lawn crunches underfoot, yet inside the greenhouse the air is soft and a tray of tomato seedlings has opened its first leaves overnight. A greenhouse moves the boundaries of the gardening year. It lets you start earlier, pick later, ripen crops that would otherwise sulk outdoors and keep tender plants alive through the winter.

This guide is for anyone who has just bought a greenhouse, is thinking of buying one, or has had one for years and suspects it could be doing more. It starts with the structure itself: how glass and polycarbonate handle light and warmth, how to choose and site a house, and what the planning rules say. Then it covers the everyday management that separates a productive greenhouse from an expensive oven, before moving on to raising plants, crops, fruit, flowers and the pests and diseases that like the warm as much as you do.

Inside the book

• Choosing glass, polycarbonate, a polytunnel, a lean-to or a cold frame, with a buyer’s checklist
• Siting, bases, power and water, plus planning and building rules across the UK nations
• Ventilation, shading, damping down, heating, insulation and watering explained properly
• Raising plants from seed, taking cuttings and multiplying bulbs under glass
• Tomatoes in depth, with cucumbers, melons, peppers, chillies, aubergines and early crops
• Salads and greens for autumn, winter and spring, when light is the real limit
• Grapes, peaches, figs, citrus and forced strawberries, including hand pollination
• Sweet peas, forced bulbs, amaryllis and freesias, and overwintering tender perennials
• Biological control and plain advice on pests, diseases and disorders without reaching for fungicides
• A month-by-month calendar, troubleshooting tables and a glossary

Heated or not, it’s up to you

Nothing in the book assumes you will heat your greenhouse. Where a crop or flower needs warmth, the text says so and says how much, so you can decide whether an unheated house, a frost-free one kept at about 4°C (39°F) or something warmer suits your plants and your pocket.

Written for beginners, useful to old hands

No previous knowledge is assumed, and the book suggests a manageable first year: raise seedlings in spring, grow two or three cordon tomatoes and perhaps one all-female cucumber, then sow winter salads and autumn sweet peas. Experienced growers will find the figures that matter, from the temperatures at which tomato flowers fail to set to the conditions a predatory mite needs to do its job.

Timings are given for the UK and similar temperate climates, and a chapter on other climates shows how to adapt them for the Southern Hemisphere, hot climates and hard continental winters, often by keying sowing dates to your own last frost. Safety notes cover electricity, heaters, glass, chemicals and toxic plants wherever they are needed.

The plants will teach you the rest, though some of them are rather sulky about it.