I have a little garden so I can only fit in a six-by-four foot greenhouse. I am also restricted by the fact that I need the door to be in the four-foot end rather than the six-foot side because the space available means the sides won't be easy to get at.
The greenhouse had to come out of spare cash and I have accumulated enough so this is on order.
Yes, cheaper ones are available but I don't want to have to replace it so I went for the best I could get at the level of cash available. The box-section polycarbonate provides insulation as well as being less readily broken by the horrible children that infest the area. Plus, it makes it harder to see what's growing inside.
All I need now is a bottle to bribe the greenhouse-man from Smoky-Drinky to put it together. He gets the bottle when he's done. I don't want it installed upside down.
And yes, smoking will happen inside, permitted or not. I'm sure no plants will complain although the chillies have other ways of getting revenge. But they'll do that anyway.
8 comments:
I recently moved and now have my first ever greenhouse which I have used to death this year.
Its packed with courgettes, tomatoes, bell peppers and chillies with herbs everywhere else.
Enjoy.
P.S. The plants don't mind you smoking at all.
Cute little thing, but possibly unstable in strong winds. If you are not bothering with the added expense of attaching it to a concreted plinth, I suggest some long stakes around the periphery to tether it down - with the doors open and the wind blowing there's a surprising high lifting force exerted (I speak from bitter experience)!
"I don't want it installed upside down."
Why not? It would go nicely with one of these....
http://xenophilius.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/upside-down-house-11.jpg
Don’t worry about the plants. Some years ago, a friend of mine did an experiment in which he grew seedlings in two covered seedling-boxes, where he daily blew cigarette smoke into one, in the confident expectation that the smoke-afflicted seedlings would either wither and die or suffer from stunted growth or deformities (or something along those lines), thus proving what terrible stuff cigarette smoke was. In all other ways he treated them identically. Much to his dismay the seedlings in the smoky box shot up like triffids, far outgrowing their non-smoky counterparts, producing healthy, vibrant foliage with not a single death or weedy plant in the whole batch, unlike the “smokefree” ones, who suffered the normal levels of non-appearance or plant death as is usual amongst any batch of seedlings.
Our Biology teacher informed him – between gritted teeth – that this was probably because nicotine itself is a chemical which is produced naturally by the tobacco plant (and maybe others – not sure) to protect themselves against harmful micro-organisms, and as such what he’d been doing was giving them an extra dose of protection against the kinds of pests and diseases to which young plants are especially prone.
Which, if the health freaks could just bring themselves to admit it (and thus facilitate some research into the matter) might be one reason why tobacco smokers so rarely suffer with mouth ulcers or gum infections, and why people who give up smoking often find themselves consistently plagued with mouth problems of this kind after quitting.
I've grown courgettes outdoors here, many years ago. Then discovered I didn't like them.
I'm told it's possible to grow cucumbers outdoors but the cold snaps are getting more unpredictable.
Chillis and peppers will be the main crops at first. Until I get some of those nice Nicotiana plants ;)
Ed P - it gets very windy indeed here. So I'll be fixing it down very hard, with lots of concrete. I've also decided against the auto-vent because it can be warm and windy at the same time and if that opened in a gale, it might not be good.
Microdave - that's what happens when you import Australian builders.
Anon - I put cigarette ends in the compost. They are entirely made of plant materials and compost nicely. They also contain a natural insecticide - nicotine - and composted with coffee grounds which also contain a natural insecticide - caffeine - they make a great compost.
Along with lots of other plant stuff such as grass clippings and shredded bank statements etc. i don't want to give the impression that the compost is entirely fag-ends and coffee!
I'm not going to make any claims because I haven't done any controlled experiments but... before I made my own compost I had problems with whitefly and greenfly. No sign of them now. Could be coincidence, of course.
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