[growth] I'm still really dithery about greenhouses

[kaberett]

In that I want one! Given a greenhouse I could start things at the allotment off earlier in the year, and probably grow a passionfruit, and have somewhere to actually store my tools a bit more usefully, and actually be able to grow the cucumbers and sweet peppers I'm hoping for, and so on and so forth.

(I'd want one with automatic openers on the roof vents because there is no way I'm actually going to reliably make it to the allotment twice a day, sorry, which is also why I don't get to keep any kind of livestock.)

The specific dither I'm having, though, is that greenhouses are Expensive new. I would probably be able to get one for less than fifty quid off ebay... only then I'd have to dismantle and remantle it myself, and probably hire a van, and have an enormous anxiety about how to transport the glass in a van without breaking it, and also either look pathetic at Adam some more (who has driven A Lot of vans for me) or look pathetic at You Lot for a volunteer who doesn't mind helping to dismantle a greenhouse etc etc etc. And then I get anxious about what kind of footing I'd need to work out putting it on, as well; breeze blocks or concrete paving slabs seem like the obvious options but, also, I'm having a massive executive dysfunction about it.

So probably what's actually going to happen is that I'll keep dithering through the start of this season while keeping appendages crossed that the DWP is going to give me the back-payment I'm theoretically owed, which would let me pay off the last non-mortgage house-purchase debt and hopefully have enough left over that I can, in fact, just Pay To Make The Problem Go Away, which... would be lovely. (Fingers crossed: I've got an upcoming phone call about SMI and my PIP reassessment is on Wednesday, when all else aside I'll be able to tell them that I have in fact recently had a fall while sitting down that resulted in broken bones.)

But! Advice and input and suggestions are very welcome, so. Please feel encouraged to tell me what I'm missing. <3

Comments

[alexwlchan]

Disclaimer: I know about as much about greenhouses as I do about growing vegetables, which is to say I just about know which end goes in the ground. All else is guesswork.

And since you asked for advice and suggestions…

…

So I did what any good millennial does when we don’t know something and I asked Google. Or more precisely, eBay. And the two things that jumped out at me were the number of greenhouses with plastic (sorry, “polycarbonate”) panels and polytunnels. Both of which would solve the problem of “I don’t want to transport glass”.

There’s probably a good reason why you’re not using a polytunnel. (For starters, I don‘t think they can have roof vents that automatically open, although maybe they don’t need them? I don’t know why the roof vent needs to be open in the first place.) Maybe knowing that would be helpful, idk.

They also look to be on the cheap side compared to new greenhouses. Maybe it’s not suitable for long-term use, but you could get one of those so you can start the early growing this year, and ditch it when you get the proper greenhouse? And/or move it to another spot.

...

Separately, good luck for the PIP reassessment on Wednesday. (LMK if you want in-person moral support before/after?)

[aldabra]

I know someone who programmed a Raspberry Pi to open his polytunnel doors. IRMFI.

I looked vaguely into polytunnels last year and discovered you had to affix them very firmly into the ground to stop them blowing away, to a degree which is incompatible with a rented garden.

You can get little patio greenhouses for starting seeds early in, though not for passionfruit.

https://www.google.com/search?q=patio+greenhouse&client=firefox-b-ab&tbm=shop

[kaberett]

Polycarbonate panels: I'm aware of them as an option, but I resent the shit out of them because they actually do much less effective light transmission than glass. EVEN THOUGH I agree that they would be less D: to transport.

Window opening: the reason I want that for greenhouses is that fundamentally they get very warm, and very steamy, so they need windows open appropriately to allow air circulation and to prevent your plants from... actually steaming themselves!

Polytunnels: I'm a bit D: D: D: about them blocking light and being less warm and Awkward To Anchor, but... maaaaaaaaaaybe?

(Will probably be late-notice prodding about moral support -- I work out when/if i'm having a GP appt on Monday morning.)

[alexwlchan]

Those reasons all seem sensible! Now I’ve planted those ideas in your head, I shall bow out of the conversation here, I don’t think I have much else useful to say.

(Late-notice prodding is fine. I have evening plans on Wednesday but they're movable in an emergency.)

[ewt]

You may like to consider cold frames and cloches, which still give you a head start on the planting, but without being A Giant Structure.

[ewt]

Also I think you can do quite a bit by the use of dark-coloured south-facing walls and dark-coloured water tanks. See fruit walls, and also Chinese-style solar greenhouses.

I think even in a relatively small cold frame or mini-greenhouse there is mileage in this kind of passive thermal storage.

[kaberett]

No such thing at the plot, where I'd like to put this! But, yes, okay, I will attempt to get my act together again about cloches!

[sebenikela]

Extremely low-tech tiny seed starting cold frame: 2L soda bottle, cut the bottom off, unscrew the lid. Voila, vented insulated space for baby plants!

(if I was on the right continent or had a teleporter I would totally come help set up a greenhouse, that sounds like great fun)

[worlds_of_smoke]

good luck with the PIP stuff. ♥

[hydrangea]

Oh, oh, DO grow cucumbers even if the greenhouse gets too complicated. We grow them every summer, several varieties, outside without a greenhouse and they are so. very. yummy. My favourites are the spiky small ones you need gloves to handle, but there's a yellow Chinese variety that is quite tasty too. The regular supermarket ones work too.

And having a pot of Melothria scabra at home isn't bad either. :P I ate them as snacks all summer last year.

[kaberett]

I currently have seeds for Longfellow and Chengelkoy, and if I do reasonably with them this year am considering getting some pickling cucumbers for next year. :)

[davidgillon]

Poly tunnels have already been mentioned, but you also get plastic affairs that want to be a greenhouse when they grow up - mostly for leaning against a handy vertical wall, don't know if you have one accessible. Searching 'plastic lean to greenhouse' gives answers from £30 up, but you can get ones with even more basic a structure than those.

Will be crossing everything bendily possible for your PIP reassessment!

[kaberett]

I'm deeply suspicious of those plastic affairs perhaps unfairly because Papa installed one at the m.a.p. and it promptly... well, it's on the west coast of the Lizard, okay, it was... never going to last long.

[feanelwa]

Hmm, I wouldn't keep tools in a greenhouse, I'd go for something a bit more opaque and harder to break into. People nick shit from allotments to break into houses with.

[kaberett]

I'm aware that this is an issue, but (1) the allotments are really quite heavily fenced off, and (2) the tools I'd be leaving are, approximately, "a trowel", so. Much more significant tools do get left around the site so I'd not be too concerned about my hand tools!

[feanelwa]

Wow, that sounds like a really nice allotment!

[kaberett]

It really really is -- I'm incredibly fond of it!

[davidgillon]

Yeah, definitely want a sheltered nook.

[ewt]

I once had a plan to steal lots of those rectangular-ish 5L water bottles from people's recycling boxes, cut them into tiles, and construct a greenhouse out of them.

Then the council switched to wheelie bins for recycling and it got a lot harder to inconspicuously pick up the water bottles. Sigh.

[alatefeline]

No coherent comments, just garden squeeee!