No Glasshouse – No Problem!

There are a number of ways we can beat the weather when gardening. Weather normally dictates when we sow, what we sow and when we harvest our crops – but we can take measures that will at least give us a helping hand.

1.       GROWING UNDER GLASS: again this usually means growing our crops under the protection of a glasshouse or polytunnel, either heated or unheated, to create a warmer environment so we can plant& harvest earlier or grow plants our climate wouldn’t naturally let us do. But don’t panic if you neither have the space or money to erect either, because by using steps laid out in No’s 2, 3, & 4 (below) we can still get ahead off the posse.

2.       WARMING THE SOIL: With the use of cloches or a layer of plastic sheeting, we can warm the soil enough to give our seed/seedlings a good head start. A week or two prior to planting should be enough. You could leave the sheeting in place and plant by cutting holes/slits at the required intervals, if you don’t mind seeing plastic over your drills. This method would vastly improve soil temperatures while growing and give the benefit of both suppressing  weeds and keeping fruit/vegetables cleaner

3.       HEATED WINDOW-SILL: by starting your seeds inside on a warm window-sill that gives light but not direct sunlight, you can plant your seeds earlier - weeks earlier in most cases and that means an earlier harvest. By transplanting them into the heated soil later when they become too big for your window sill, you will have given them a great jump start – rather than planting seed directly into unheated soil. One thing to remember though, plants will grow toward the light so you will need to turn them daily if you want nice straight stems for planting later.

Geraniums left unprotected outside our Dublin home.

 Geraniums over wintered inside .

     

      Dont under estitmate the value of your heated home to produde early plants or protect plants over winter - see both unprotected and protected Geraniums

4.       CLOCH PROTECTION AFTER PLANTING: After we transplant our seedlings into our heated soil, they would still benefit from some protection against the elements. If you have purpose built cloches great, but again there are cheaper ways around this. By cutting the ends off clear plastic bottles (but leave the top on), fitting them over the plant and pushing it into the soil you have created a mini-glasshouse for your plant.

mini cloch  - botton off & leave top on.

You can use the methods stated above for a whole host of plants: Beans, peas, lettuce, leeks, turnip, tomatoes, peppers, etc. and over the next few weeks we will mention how to plant these to get the best out of each individual plant. Another benefit from this type of growing is you will only transplant strong healthy plants and at required spacing (so no more thinning plants - saving time & money).

Until next time - Happy Gardening