Hi all
New here and new to 'growing my own' veggies.
Had some success with my first attempts at growing potatoes and peas and have been severely bitten by the 'homegrown' bug.

I am now considering getting a greenhouse to expand my veg choices and allow for a longer growing season. After trawling through the pages and pages of info on the web about greenhouses, I am even more confused then when I started!

Can someone please enlighten me on a few points?

1 Which is best - horticultural glass, toughened glass or polycarbonate panels?

2 Is it necessary to have a base fitted to the bottom of the 'house'?

3 Can automatically opening vents be fitted to replace manual opening ones without too much alteration?

4 Is it good practice to line the house with insulation such as bubble wrap?


Any help would be very much appreciated.

Lordspudz wrote:
3 Can automatically opening vents be fitted to replace manual opening
ones without too much alteration?

We have automatic windows in one, and they are the bane of my life! They
don't close completely, so in the winter they cause a draft, and in the rain
they leak and we get puddles! And one time they got so upset they managed
to force the pane in one of the auto windows to break (presumably by
stressing the glass somehow - although I could be unfairly blaming it when
it was something dropped by a bird of something else causing it).
They annoy me!

4 Is it good practice to line the house with insulation such as bubble
wrap?

My neighbour uses bubble wrap in the winter to keep the frost out. We've
never got round to trying it out so far. She also whitewashes the glass
during the summer to stop things getting scorched.

The other bit of advise that you will probably get is to get the biggest
greenhouse you can sensibly fit. Don't try and scrimp by getting a smaller,
cheaper one, as you will regret it later. We wish we'd got a bigger one!
(but we made up for that by taking over our behind-neighbour's unused one as
well :-)

On 20/07/2010 15:09, Lordspudz wrote:

Can someone please enlighten me on a few points?

1 Which is best - horticultural glass, toughened glass or polycarbonate
panels?

Piece of string question.
Horticultural glass tends to break into jagged shards (VVVV dangerous
(IMHOYMMV)) bit like window panes in horror movies, NEVER have HG above
you. Polycarbanate tends to get blown about in a wind. Toughened glass
has a tendency to shatter rather than just crack so can not have the odd
crack taped over .
If the expense is no object I would go Polycarbonate (with good
glasing bars) Toughened glass then Horticultural glass

2 Is it necessary to have a base fitted to the bottom of the 'house'?

Not necessary depending on make/model of greenhouse.

3 Can automatically opening vents be fitted to replace manual opening
ones without too much alteration?

We fitted an automatic vent opener in place of a manual in a couple of
minutes and have had no problems since.

4 Is it good practice to line the house with insulation such as bubble
wrap?

In the winter, yes (along with screening for very sunny days)

"Lordspudz" wrote
New here and new to 'growing my own' veggies.
Had some success with my first attempts at growing potatoes and peas and
have been severely bitten by the 'homegrown' bug.

I am now considering getting a greenhouse to expand my veg choices and
allow for a longer growing season. After trawling through the pages and
pages of info on the web about greenhouses, I am even more confused then
when I started!

Can someone please enlighten me on a few points?

1 Which is best - horticultural glass, toughened glass or polycarbonate
panels?

Horticultural Glass has a green tint and is cheaper, Toughened Glass is
clearer and safer and dearer, Polycarbonate is clear, very safe but soft and
bendy so it scratches and gets pushed/sucked out in a gale. Your shout.

2 Is it necessary to have a base fitted to the bottom of the 'house'?

Always a good idea.

3 Can automatically opening vents be fitted to replace manual opening
ones without too much alteration?

Yes, highly recommended but do buy the best, cheap ones don't last long. Can
even have automatic opening louvers.

4 Is it good practice to line the house with insulation such as bubble
wrap?

Only if you want to keep stuff over winter, i.e. keep the frost out.

Another point is you need vents in the roof but also vent/s near the ground
so you get a throughput of fresh air, chimney effect. Normal to have a set
of louvers opposite the door at ground level but one either side works well
too.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

On 20 July, 15:09, Lordspudz
wrote:
Hi all
New here and new to 'growing my own' veggies.
Had some success with my first attempts at growing potatoes and peas and
have been severely bitten by the 'homegrown' bug.

I am now considering getting a greenhouse to expand my veg choices and
allow for a longer growing season. *After trawling through the pages and
pages of info on the web about greenhouses, I am even more confused then
when I started!

Can someone please enlighten me on a few points?

1 Which is best - horticultural glass, toughened glass or polycarbonate
panels?

2 Is it necessary to have a base fitted to the bottom of the 'house'?

3 Can automatically opening vents be fitted to replace manual opening
ones without too much alteration?

4 Is it good practice to line the house with insulation such as bubble
wrap?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

--
Lordspudz

Consider too a polytunnel. Much cheaper than a conventional green
house. The plastic lasts about ten years before it needs replacing.
They have disadvantages too, you can't easily collect water off the
roof and you can't have roof vents. You can have a door at each end.

Go for as big as possible whatever, And I would recommend ring
culture.

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/todo...aqs.php?id=107

1. Depends on your circumstances. Do you have young children or elderly parents who could fall against the glass, for example? Others will explain the differences better than me

2. You need a firm base for the bottom of the greenhouse walls because any movement could cause glass to break. You don't necessarily need to floor the greenhouse - for example you might like to plant things in soil beds rather than in pots or gro-bags. It's useful to have some sort of floor (eg concrete slabs) over bits which you're not going to grow in - easy to sweep clean,, for example.

3.. Yes, and they're well worth having

4. Definitely yes, it you're planning to heat the greenhouse in winter. Presumably also yes if you're not heating it. It cuts down the light level, so best to have some way of easily removing it in spring. I leave the bubble wrap on the side of the greenhouse up to staging level.. Then I have a series of canes strung in parallel lines just below the roof, and I drape bubble foam sheets over these for the winter, which is a relatively easy job.

Many thanks for the replies.

Collectively, you've answered all the questions and a few more I'd thought of since posting.

I can squeeze in a 8x6 which should be plenty big enough.
I'll definitely avoid horticultural glass and maybe go for polycarbonate as I've read somewhere else you can seal the panels with silicon sealant to stop them moving too much.
Yes to bubble wrap.
Yes to auto vent and louvre window.

Off to find one that fits the bill (at the right price too of course) :-)

Thanks again

No it won't be ;-)
That's the first thing you learn as a greenhouse owner - whatever size you thought of was not big enough ;-)

Mine is 16 x 10 and I'm struggling - especially in autumn when all the tender things have come in for the winter but the tomatoes and peppers are still fruiting, and in spring when the seed trays are multiplying but all the tender things haven't yet gone outside.

"kay" wrote in message
...

Lordspudz;894855 Wrote:
Many thanks for the replies.

I can squeeze in a 8x6 which should be plenty big enough.


No it won't be ;-)
That's the first thing you learn as a greenhouse owner - whatever size
you thought of was not big enough ;-)

Mine is 16 x 10 and I'm struggling - especially in autumn when all the
tender things have come in for the winter but the tomatoes and peppers
are still fruiting, and in spring when the seed trays are multiplying
but all the tender things haven't yet gone outside.


kay

I agree with Kay, whatever size you think will do, double it :-)

kate

On 21/07/2010 09:40, Lordspudz wrote:

I can squeeze in a 8x6 which should be plenty big enough.

No it won't. We have an 8 X 6 and if we had the room we would
definately have gone up one if not two sizes (say to a 12 X 8)
(this eventuality is not to far beyond the realm of possibility.
'All' I have to do is enlarge the 'pad'[1] and find the money for
another greenhouse).
This size was probably OK the first year but we wished we had gone
bigger the next year.
Craftsman and probably others do things called glazing bars as a
replacement for glazing clips they are a tad wider and support along the
entire length of a piece of glass/poly rather than the three or four
places supported by clips. Have no experience of Silicon sealer used
with poly sheeting so cannot comment .


[1] http://www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk/gh1.html

This shows just how small an 8 X 6 really is, sounds big but... .

Thanks Jake & Soup

Guess I'll have to get the tape measure out again and have a re-think.

Still leaning towards the poly type as opposed to glass (the glazing bars and draughtproof stuff are both worth looking into)