BEST use of your greenhouse (and my IKEA hack for it)

well today is probably the most asked about video I've ever got on my channel over the years today we're going to talk about my Greenhouse what we'll do is we'll start outside so this is my Greenhouse now it's in the category that in the UK gets called a hobby Greenhouse now what that means it's a kind of standard size range that's common in a Garden so mine's is 6t wide by 8T long okay now it is slightly higher than your average hobby greenhouse and that's because this particular brand make their green houses like this now I'll be honest with you mines is the more expensive end of that scale it's by a company called Rhino and this greenhouse if you were to buy it today would probably cost you about £2,000 but like I say it's a bit of a specialist thing this has been built it's designed and built to deal with the absolute worst that the weather can thr at it the frame is a much much heavier frame than on your standard garden greenhouse and even the glass itself is actually thicker than standard Horticultural glass these get advertised with people using it for target practice when playing golf close range driving golf balls at it this thing will stand up to anything that it can get in my garden and trust me that's important because we live in a wind plane so what we'll do then is I'll tell you all about how I use my Greenhouse we'll go from the use of it and why you might want one what you might use it for we'll look at the inside and how I've got it set up and why we'll talk about all the gadgets and tools and things that are in there and I'll try and answer some of the questions I've had over the years from you guys about my specifics so let's start with using it then it's a beautiful sunny day it's quite windy it's not overly warm but that Sunshine heats up the greenhouse that's how it works any direct sunlight on there gets trapped inside and it really really does warm up that Greenhouse so it means for say early spring I can actually be starting seeds and bring on little seedlings much much earlier than I could if I was doing it out in the garden because the greenhouse not only on a sunny day will it warm up in there but just generally it provides a bit of protection from frosts from wind chill from generally the cold that could damage or kill little plants so it gives me that few weeks maybe even a month or so more at the start of the Season where I can get growing and get started which is which is great if you live in a short season like I do now the other end of the spectrum is Autumn late Autumn get into winter again because it takes the heat from the Sun it can give me that extra few weeks at the end of the season where I can still be growing plants in my Greenhouse that I would no longer be able to grow outdoors so it extends my season and that's how I use it but although it does trap the heat from the Sun that heat will dissipate it means at night it generally will be the same temperature in the greenhouse as it is out in my garden which means in Winter it can get down below zero in there it still offers an element of protection though so I do actually use my Greenhouse all year round and the way I do that is I think about following the seasons with the plants I grow so I don't try and grow summer crops in there in winter because although it helps to extend my season it won't change it it won't make it summer in there when it's winter out here but it definitely does make it warmer and generally make things a bit better for the plants so this is it as I said it's 6t wide and 8T long so it's not incredibly big but you learn how to make the most out of that space and how to make it really work for your garden and that's actually the first question question I want to talk about brilliant question and I deliberately want to put this first because it was something I had never thought was a question that would be asked it was something I always thought was really obvious and it is when you have news in Greenhouse but if you don't have one this is one of the great questions that you want to ask yourself before you buy one so it came in last year and I was asked why do I see everyone online just using their Greenhouse to start see why don't people actually grow plants in the greenhouse fantastic question and here is the answer my Greenhouse is currently full of seedlings and small plants that cannot go into the garden yet as well as some that are actually going out this week but that is for now and how I use my Greenhouse now so do you remember I mentioned stealing back some of the Season or extend in the season well because it gets warmer in here I can actually St start seeds earlier and bring those seedlings on so that when they do go out into the garden they're much stronger little plants and they've got a much better chance of surviving and because they're slightly further on I'm likely to get better harvests if they're food crops or more blooms if it's some of my flowers so that's one of the reasons you see people spending a lot of time with seedlings and baby Plants and Things in our Greenhouse in the earlier part of of their year now I do grow plants in here I just don't grow plants or rather I don't grow the same plants all the time in here or all year round so what will happen is probably come May when the last frosts have passed and my garden is beginning to warm up I'll probably start putting some of these little plants into the garden and it'll make space in here and then things will change and that's when I'll use my Greenhouse for growing my warm seasoned crops things like tomatoes peppers Obin things that wouldn't be as successful for me in my garden because we have a shorter season for those warm crops and remember the greenhouse lets me add on to that season so that's how I do things the start of the Year seedlings seeds getting things going getting plants strong and healthy in a nice safe environment later in the year yes then I will start growing proper plants in here and it flips around the gang come the end of summer into Autumn I'll start sewing the seeds that are going to be my winter crops and I said earlier it's really important I don't try and grow anything that isn't a winter crop for me so everything I grow is Hardy in my garden but growing it in my Greenhouse means that when we get to those extreme colds and freezies and it kills off my crops Outdoors I've still got things going in the greenhouse house so I can be harvesting all winter long so let's start with this then what you can see is the kind of shape and setup in here for what I'm doing it is three benches so there's one at the back and these two this is a kind of standard setup for a greenhouse this u- shape these benches here in the UK we call them staging okay so if you're looking for things that might be what they're called but they allow you to have a surface that for instance here I can be working on when I'm sewing seeds and potting up seedlings Etc it's a surface where you can be laying out all your different plants so they can get the best of the light so you can get to things you can see things it's also somewhere where you can do things like this this is a big heated propagator and this lets me germinate seeds even when it's really cold because it gives heat from the bottom heats up the soil and lets those seeds germinate it also gives a tiny bit of protection for anything in there that's a bit more tender now this is my standard setup for most of the Year anytime where I'm growing smaller plants I'm sewing seeds that type of thing for summer however I change it up could you remember I said I grow things like tomatoes and peppers well tomatoes are really tall plants so these benches can fold flat and that's what I do I fold this one down flat onto the floor and that gives me me the height I need to grow fulls size tomatoes in my Greenhouse so this greenhouse very much gets changed around to suit what I'm doing and what I need and that's one of the things you have to think about when you've only got a small Greenhouse if you can't change it up to make the best of what you want to do it's going to limit what you can use it for and I wasn't happy to be limited so yeah so that's roughly the setup now in order to do that there are a few little tools and gadgets and things that help me along so let's talk about them cuz some of them might be useful for you they're not all necessary but they're all useful for me let's start upwards one of the things you'll see up here this greenhouse has two windows in the roof that is so important we talked about how the greenhouse gets warm and we want it to be warm but we don't want it to get too warm warm because some plants like peppers and tomatoes if it's too warm they won't produce it's just too warm for them but also you want ventilation if you don't have ventilation in your Greenhouse you're going to get problems with pests and mold and fungus and milw and all sorts you want ventilation is super important so vents in the ceiling but also I've got vents about knee level on each side of the greenhouse so I've got an option for what I can open and where when and what combination but also these two window vents at the top they have something called an auto vent which is one of my number one gadgets for the greenhouse it means I don't have to remember to come in and out and open and close windows instead these are triggered by heat so when the greenhouse gets to a certain temperature these start to open and the hotter it gets the wide of the windows open which means there's automatic ventilation now I've all already mentioned that this is a heated propagator so obviously that means that I've got some form of power in here quite often I get asked about heat for the greenhouse and do you need to heat it do you need a heater do you need power and the answer to all of them is absolutely not those are extras that you can add if you want to but actually the majority of green houses have no Heating in them it's just not a done thing possibly because it would be so incredibly expensive to do but you only need a heater in your Greenhouse if you're growing something that needs to be kept at a set temperature and you need to have that really controlled environment things like you know orchids tropical plants that kind of thing anyone who's really into grown that type of thing will not only have a heater but they'll probably have all sorts of systems to monitor their Greenhouse for humidity heat light Etc as well so it's a bit more more outside the hobby range of things so Eli if you don't need heat and power and all that kind of thing why have you got it to be honest it's just a convenience it lets me run things like heat mats to heat up the soil or this propagator but it lets me uh charge camera equipment when I'm filming in the greenhouse it lets me uh have music on if I'm in here working all of those kind of Handy things and things like lights now these are just outdoor lights guarden lights but here in Scotland in autumn and winter and even early spring it gets very dark very quickly and doesn't light up again until much later so if I don't have some sort of light in here it kind of makes it unusable now these aren't anything fancy but it lets me work in here really really nicely and again it's because I've got power you do get solar powered versions and I have had solar powered lights in here but now that I've got plugs it just makes my life a bit easier now it's not grow lights it's just lights to see by I've been asked as well about do I use grow lights in my Greenhouse the answer is no not as a habit but yes I have couple of years ago I had all my plants in here very very early I was sewing peppers in January in here and I had GR grow lights on this for the little seedlings again because it's dark here in Scotland so we don't get enough light for our plants until mid to late March so until then I was running grow lights so I get asked an awful lot about all the different tools and things I recommend for beginner Greenhouse owners the thing is what I use in here is not really much different than what I would use if I was out in the garden or I had a pot and shed that type of thing I won't go into detail because I've got a video that really does go into detail in this type of thing and I'll link it at the end of the video for you but I recommend things like some form of tree that you can use for potting up just because it keeps things tidy some way of putting your trees of seedlings or pots on like a tree like these so that you can water them and it doesn't end up with water every everywhere even things like little boxes that you can be storing uh plant pots and labels and that kind of thing in really handy shelves to keep things out of the way so useful and even things like plastic boxes so this one's currently got my delas in it I'm just about to get these planted up but plastic boxes are awesome now plastic here's the thing a greenhouse is a humid environment okay that's just the way it is here in Scotland we have a very humid environment so my Greenhouse is always going to be humid to give you an idea in Scotland it's over 90% humidity for most of the year um and that includes summer so cardboard boxes in here aren't great because they'll get damp and moldy plastic boxes are fantastic now speaking up at plastic boxes this is one of the most requested things about my Greenhouse over the last couple of years and it is incredibly simple and I'm going to show you and you're going to be so disappointed about how simple it is and is these boxes here so I said that I do a lot of seed starting and seedling putting on in this greenhouse therefore it's just much more convenient for me and much cheaper for me to make up my own potting and seed starting mix mixes so that's what these are on this side I've got all my ingredients so I've got cocoa coil I've got vermiculite and I've got compost and on this side I've got my finished mix ready to get going and you can see it's here cuz it's nice and convenient for we imp poton on now these I get asked about so much so if I pull out this one it'll make it easier to see these are not fancy gardening boxes these are recycling boxes from Ikea now what confuses people is they're actually white boxes but you can see minees are all colorful this started because we had them out in the garden and I actually spray painted them because the white in the garden was just too bright and stewed out and believe it or not spray painting them this bright pink they they merged into the garden so much better possibly cuz we've got a lot of kind of rusty red colors in the garden but I liked it so much that I brought them into the greenhouse to use because they're just so useful and then I didn't have a lot of spray paint left so I only spray painted the lid cuz it was the bit I could see and actually I prefer that I really like it now a friend made these fabulous labels for me for the first time I did this um using something called a cricket it's just a craft cutting machine and since then I've been doing that for all my boxes so I recently just updated these two because they needed a bit of a cleanup cuz they were all you see they get all scuffed and chipped and things from use so I added the labels to these two just last week after I spray painted them but yeah these are my boxes that I use so that I can get to everything I need and this is just a scoop so I can get into the boxes and scoop out what I need and it's great for measuring as well like I said I make up my own mixes now some of the other tools I use you might be surprised at how simple it is but there are tools I will have in the greenhouse all the time because I know I'm going to use them a lot in here and I don't want to have to go and get them from the shed and what have you two types of watering I keep in here just an old bottle and it's got one of these little widgets so that it's a really super fine spray for seedlings but you could do the same but just poking holes in the lid of the bottle but also I keep a watering can with watering in the greenhouse the reason for that I don't want to go and get water from the side tap because it's going to be really cold and it'll shock all these little guys that are living in a warmer Greenhouse so I keep the watering can in here with water in it so that that is the same temperature as the greenhouse it's the same with using a heated propagator I keep a bottle like this in the propagator so the water's the same temperature just so you don't shock your seedlings so that's the real basic thing watering this is my poting on seeds stting area so I've got a lot of little things here I use for that dibbers and wooders and things for wiping my hands cuz you get dirty and you're touching different things so it's handy just to have a rag towel something but you can see as well this shelf here that's actually just two pieces of wood they're not even attached in any way they just sit together it just gives me a little place to put small things like pieces of string wire scissors small things like that and I can see it and get to it easily none of this is essential but it is really really handy secur or pruners because there will always be times when I'm pruning in here especially in summer when I've got the tomato plants and pepper plants so I keep my secar in the greenhouse nice and handy now these two you maybe not expecting a feather duster okay I said earlier we'll talk about pests this is because one of the pests you will get in your Greenhouse or at least I do here is simply spiders and I'm saying pest it's not actually a pest in terms of the garden but it's a pest for me because I end up with cobwebs everywhere and I end up walking into them getting them in my hair all that kind of thing feather duster all I do is in that season when there's a lot of spiders about is I just go around and break up all the webs every day just to try and encourage them to go elsewhere just head out into the garden and make your webs there so feather duster is so handy and um if you can tape a bit of bamboo can on it it's nice and high for getting up there there you go the other one I've got a little dust pan and brush I keep in here because when you're working away you will drop compost and potting mix and vermiculite and seeds all the time and rather than just leaving them to sit and get into or the paving sweep it up that way you don't end up with random plants grown in places you didn't want plants it's also great for sweeping down shelves and things cuz it's always good keep things neat and tidy you will get less pests less disease Less Problems keep it tidy okay the last thing I'm going to pop onto then is problems and pests now the thing is a greenhouse will have its share of pest the same as the garden will it's not immune from this kind of thing for me the main problem I have in my Greenhouse is aphids um I grow peppers and obber jeans which just seem to attract AIDS here and uh being in the greenhouse given it's a nice safe warm environment they breed very quickly in here so you need to stay on top of it it's no different from being out in the garden that you can just squish them when you see them deal with them that way the only difference is given that you're in here and it's all glass and there may be ventilation there are much less opportunities for those beneficial insects to come in and deal with problems like AIDS and on that note there's also much less chance for things like your pollinators to come in here and pollinate any of your plants so if you're growing things like peppers and OB jeans cucumbers all that kind of thing you may end up having to pollinate by hand because there's just not enough pollinators about so other than if you've been eagle eyed enough to spot it there is various tripods and Camera stands and things all over my Greenhouse for filming there are other things I have in here but I wouldn't consider them to be something that's really a big deal for a beginner Greenhouse grow stick with your simple plant pots some trees and the basics and as you get used to using your Greenhouse you'll learn what you need and what might be handy and you can slowly build things up from there but there you go that's my Greenhouse how I use it and what's in it and as I promised then a video all about making the best of even a small greenhouse and hand pollinating your plants see you folks

Channel: In the Garden with Eli and Kate

Views: 12,883

Keywords: beginner greenhouse, eli and kate, eli and kate gardening, gardening, gardening tips and tricks, gardening uk, greenhouse, greenhouse gardener, greenhouse gardening, greenhouse growing, greenhouses, in the garden with eli and kate, rhino greenhouse, suburban garden, urban garden

Id: hlNbN7ViEOo

Length: 23min 14sec (1394 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024