Newbie greenhouse help please.

[Davidwd]

I am a newbie and have just purchased an 8 x 6 greenhouse. I am growing tomatoes cucumbers melons peppers and aubergines in self watering pots. Which plants would be better on the south side of the greenhouse and which on the north side or doesnt it make any difference? I have heard you can get greenhouse scorch, I have no shading but good automatic ventilation.

Thank you

[Bigmallly]

Hello David & welcome to the vine. Rule of thumb is that the tallest plants go on the north side to avoid casting a shade, I believe scorching happens when water is splashed on the leaves so best to avoid spraying in direct sunlight.

[WendyC]

I tend to put my cucumbers on the north side as they like it a bit cooler than the tomatoes, but as they are taller than tomatoes it works out the same as Bigmallly!

[Bren In Pots]

Hello and welcome to the vine David you've had some good answers so all I'll add is that I shade my GH with net curtains bought from the local charity shop.

[Davidwd]

Had a move around this morning, thank you for your advice, any comments welcome.

[Raybon]

That looks niiiiice!

[veggiechicken]

Hello David and welcome.
Your plants look very healthy. Are you using quadgrows? Never tried them myself but I'll be interested to hear what you think of them!

[Jimmy]

You can buy packets special anti-static stuff you mix with water and either spray or paint on the outside on the southface. But it costs !

I use plain old garden lime, put small amount in a bucket and mix to a runny paste.
Apply on INSIDE on southside with a brush.
Adjust mix to how much sun you want to filter out.

Wash any lime from plant leaves.

Jimmy

[Jimmy]

Another tip is as follows.
I often go on holiday and a neighbor waters for me.
In each growbag of say three toms I sink two large pots, one each between toms.
Sink to bottom of grow bag.

I then set up a hose and my neighbor only has to top up the pots once a day.

Use pots or cut off bottoms of large milk containers or large pop bottles or even those tubs you get treats in from the supermarket.
Jimmy

[Davidwd]

Hello David and welcome.
Your plants look very healthy. Are you using quadgrows? Never tried them myself but I'll be interested to hear what you think of them!

Yes they are the quadgrow, i have fitted a float valve in all the reservoirs, they in turn are connected to the black bucket in the corner where I have my carniverous plants (and a Freshatank disc to keep the water from going stagnant) then the black bucket has a float valve which is connected to the waterbutt outside, the waterbutt outside has a float valve half way up so if it starts to run out it is connected to a large 200 gallon waterbutt next to the house. It all seems to work well and so far but I have only had the greenhouse 10 days. I will post more

[Davidwd]

Well I thought I would update you all on my first year with the greenhouse. As from the above pictures you can see everything started well, but a few weeks after this I bought some chilli pepper plants from my local GC and within a week I had greenfly, whitefly and blackfly. So it all ended up a bit of a disaster.

I have emptied the greenhouse now and washed everything with *****.

I have planted the grapevines outside and brought them into the greenhouse through 2 holes I made and I am going to train them into the top half of the greenhouse to provide shade for the tomato's - do you think that will work ok??

I am going to have 1 quadgrow to the south side with cucumbers and one to the north side with tomato Shirley variety. In the middle 1 with french dwarf beans.

Any advice most gratefully welcome please!

[Nannysally99]

Better luck this year David, hope all goes well

[Penellype]

Where did you get the square quadgrow from? I can only find the quadgrow slim, which is too long for the spaces I have available. I'd love one of those square ones.

Your arrangement sounds fine, although you may still need to shade if the greenhouse is in full sun. I grew shirley in a fairly shady greenhouse last year but they still managed to get a bit scorched when it was very sunny.

I'd try yellow sticky traps for the pests - they won't catch them all but may help keep numbers down.

[Kristen]

I have planted the grapevines outside and brought them into the greenhouse through 2 holes I made and I am going to train them into the top half of the greenhouse to provide shade for the tomato's - do you think that will work ok??

Sounds fine to me, that's how I have my vine. It will provide quite a lot of shade to plants underneath, once it has grown along the greenhouse roof.

In the middle 1 with french dwarf beans.

I only grow early French beans in the greenhouse, once the outdoor ones take over they are replaced with a "main" greenhouse crop - but I grow in greenhouse borders, so I can plant next-crop between the beans and then pull the beans out once the outdoors ones start cropping.

[Stan79]

That does look really nice. Shame it didn't work as well as you hoped last year. Which greenhouse is that and how much did it cost (if you don't mind me asking)?