Greenhouse Gardening For Everyone
There is nothing to beat gardening as a hobby. You get all the exercise you need, and can tear up the health club card. By digging the ground, weeding and pruning, there is always something needing to be done. For stress relief, you can’t do much better. 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. By learning how to build your own greenhouse, you will have even more satisfaction
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. It is also possible to be harvesting crops all year round.
Keeping a greenhouse free from pests and diseases is of the paramount importance. Seeing your fresh produce decimated by pests or growing mold just days before you wanted to harvest it can be a really heartbreaking experience. 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. If you see damaged plant material, such as a leaf with a dirty white or grey mould; pick it off immediately and burn it. If you have used secateurs to cut off the material, then dip them in disinfectant before using them on another plant, otherwise you could just spread the mould around. Sounds simple, but many people forget this and worry that the mould is indemic.
Many problems can be simply solved just by improving ventilation. A higher humidity will also help with attacks of red spider mites although this could cause other problems. There are also parasiitic mites which you can also introduce which will cure this problem.
When you have pests or deseases, try not to introduce harsh chemicals to cure them. 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.
You can even live with some pests rather than intervening, unless of course the maximum amount of cropping matters to you.
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