|
When its cold outside Plants and seeds can still be sown and grown in a greenhouse with just a little extra bit of TLC
|
Plants and seeds to plant sow and grow in a greenhouse in Winter
Lettuce If you like salads there are at least a couple of winter hardy lettuce that will grow in a cold greenhouse or polytunnel through the winter. Arctic King is one variety. Suttons seed shop linked from my online gardeners shop has loads of suggestions for all sorts of vegetables, seeds and plants that will grow in a cold greenhouse or polytunnel through the winter
Lettuce Kwiek and Little Gem and other varieties of lettuce ( read the packet) can be sown in your greenhouse in October and then planted into seed trays when big enough and In December into pots. No need to wait until the lettuce plants have formed hearts, start harvesting when the leaves are big enough to add to salad. Leave some lettuce plants to grow on as hearted lettuce and cut as required. Tasty lettuces when shop supplies are limited and expensive .
Potatoes Potatoes Try growing early potatoes in old plastic buckets or any largish container or a flowerpot. Maris or most early potatoes (ask your local supplier) can be grown this way. Three quarter fill each container with a compost of two parts soil from the garden one part compost from your heap and one part sharp sand and plant one or two tubers in each container. Bear in mind the containers will take up quite a bit of greenhouse floor space, but the taste of early home grown organic potatoes make it worth while. Providing the weather isn't frosty and you need space to work in the greenhouse, the potatoes can be moved out of the greenhouse into the garden during the day and back into the greenhouse at night. Your first potatoes should be ready to harvest in May. Search around with your bare hands, pull out the biggest and leave the others to grow on.
Spinach, kale, cabbage, bok choy, Chinese cabbage, and most root crops. Leeks, beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips, radishes, and rutabagas and some varieties of onion can be grown through Winter in a greenhouse and you'll get a much earlier crop than if you'd waited till spring. The seed packets are the best source of information for what you can and can't grow in Winter in a greenhouse, so pend a bit of time reading in your local seed shop also check the seed merchants' catalogues for suitable varieties.. Makes a change from the library doesn't it. Or just go for it Trial and Error is most satisfying, when it works.Experiment with a few of last years seeds by sowing in a bucket and keep a note of what works for next year.
Spring onions and one of those baby salad leaf mixtures should also be ok growing through Winter.
|
|
Peas Steve gave us this useful tip for starting of early peas in the greenhouse in a length of guttering. He drilled holes for drainage, lined the guttering with a sheet of news paper, filled it with compost, then planted the peas and left the whole lot in the greenhouse until the peas had lovely long shoots. Then dug a small trench and slid the contents of the guttering straight into the ground....Result...Fantastic strong plants.
Remember !! Unless you have some form of lighting in your greenhouse very little actually grows in the Winter months of December and January. Things just tick over and then grow like mad when the days start to lengthen again, so don't panic, turn up the heat or kick the greenhouse, its natures way of giving you time for Christmas shopping.
|
|
To see the range of Suttons seeds click on the seedling, click tulips for bulbs. Be inspired
| |
|