In this beginner’s greenhouse guide, we’ll talk you through the basics, and at the end, we’ll list some of the easiest plants you can grow in a greenhouse.

Why you should have a greenhouse

First, let’s talk about why you should have a greenhouse. There are several reasons a greenhouse will help you on your gardening journey. Greenhouses allow you to get a jump start on the gardening season and grow more robust plants to transplant once the weather warms up. The indoor environment also gives the baby plants a safer place to grow. In a greenhouse and a controlled environment, the tiny plants don’t have to worry about diseases, insects, or rodents coming along and killing them before they get a chance to grow.

Additionally, growing in a greenhouse allows you to grow plants you might not otherwise be able to grow in your climate. For example, in zone 4 and 5, it’s tough to grow tropical plants; with a greenhouse, you might finally be able to grow your dream plant that likes warmth and high humidity.

For those with flourishing flower gardens during the summer, you likely miss those colorful blooms in the middle of winter. Luckily, greenhouses provide the perfect place to grow gorgeous cutting flowers all year round. You could also grow herbs in your greenhouse for fresh spices for your cooking!

Consider this before you choose which plants to grow

There’s a lot to consider before choosing which plants you’ll want to grow in your greenhouse. Here’s what to keep in mind.

Care requirements

What plants need greatly determines if they’re a good fit for growing in a greenhouse. So, research the plants in question and find out what lighting, soil type, and moisture level they thrive in. If those requirements can’t be met within your greenhouse, we suggest avoiding growing those plants. While you might be able to keep the plants alive, they won’t flourish and will probably only end in you being frustrated and wasting your time and money.

Temperatures

One of the most significant aspects of a greenhouse is having a warm place to grow plants for more extended periods. However, this can only go so far and there’s a certain point where even a greenhouse can’t keep out the cold. So be sure that the plants you’re planting will be able to survive the temperatures that your greenhouse can provide.

Alternatively, during the summer, the greenhouse will be much hotter. Many plants may suffocate and die. We don’t often think about it being too hot to grow certain plants, but this is a concern when growing in a greenhouse. Plants that like it hot are tropical plants and peppers! Hot peppers love the heat and taste better if exposed to scorching summer temperatures.

Transplanting

When growing veggies for the garden, you can use a greenhouse to get a head start on your seed starts. However, a bit of math is required to ensure your plants are at the proper development stage to be transferred to the outdoor garden. This simply means looking at their seed to transplanting dates and backtracking.

First, find out what your last frost date is; that’s when you’ll be able to transplant most of your plants out of the greenhouse and into the soil. Second, check on the seed packets to determine how many days it takes those seeds to germinate and grow to be ready for the soil. Third, take that number and count backward from the frost date. Now you know when to start your seeds in the greenhouse!

Additionally, some plants are sensitive to the stress caused by transplanting. Plants with delicate roots, especially root vegetables like beets or carrots, often fail to thrive when transplanted. That doesn’t mean you can’t grow them in your greenhouse, though! You’ll just want to grow them in pots that you can move out of the greenhouse without disturbing their roots.

Plants that grow well in greenhouses

With the proper setup, most plants can grow in a greenhouse. If you want to give yourself an easier time starting out, here are a few of the easiest and most popular greenhouse plants:

Vegetables

• Lettuce
• Broccoli
• Peas
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Squash
• Peppers

Flowers

• Geraniums
• Impatiens
• Petunias
• Salvia
• Caladiums
• Ferns
• Poinsettias
• Chrysanthemums
• Pansies
• Coleus
• Gazanias

Exotics 

• Orchids
• Venus flytraps
• Cacti

Getting a greenhouse is an excellent way to take your garden to the next level. Luckily, there are many different options and many unique setups depending on what you’re looking to grow. So do some research on what type of greenhouse you might need and get started producing some big, luscious, and healthy plants!

So what is a light deprivation (or “light dep”) greenhouse, and how does it work? Here are all the details for understanding this fresh approach to greenhouse gardening and determining whether it’s right for you.

How does a light deprivation greenhouse work?

The light deprivation method is designed to manipulate the amount of light that comes into a greenhouse and when with the end goal of controlling the time it takes for plants to reach maturity and flower. This, in turn, creates more harvests, as a large number of plant varieties won’t produce fruit or flowers until the number of sunlight hours in a given day has dipped below a certain point, hence the need to cover the greenhouse in extra darkness.

To accomplish this, a greenhouse that’s set up for light deprivation artificially controls the influx of light. This is done by blocking sunlight, usually with some kind of cover or shade system. This can be as simple as a plastic tarp or as complex as a fully automated timing system.

The specifics of operating a light dep greenhouse can vary based on what you’re growing and other factors, but in general, each setup should aim to create about 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness. Many growers handle this by covering or shading their greenhouse at 7 p.m. and uncovering it at 7 a.m. This could mean adding and removing your blackout tarp, or simply adjusting your system until it reaches the perfect balance.

The ultimate key is that simple shades won’t do the trick; it needs to be total darkness. That requires special equipment and special setups.

What does a light deprivation greenhouse cost?

There are light deprivation options for every budget. Here’s a cross-section of the possibilities:

• Greenhouse plastic film: For about $100, you can get enough of this sheeting to cover your greenhouse and provide the darkening effect needed for that light-deprivation magic.
• Hoop houses: these small greenhouses are easily converted into light deprivation mode, and range in cost based on size and quality, from around $200 up to several thousand dollars.
• Exhaust fans: particularly important for larger greenhouses, exhaust fans help keep air moving to reduce the buildup of mold and excessive heat, both of which are common side effects of the light deprivation approach. Costs range from $20 for a standard box fan to more than $1,000 for larger, most specialized models.
• Greenhouse kits: Sturdier and typically larger than a hoop house, standard greenhouse kits generally run anywhere from $1,500 to $7,000. Many are designed for light deprivation and come standard with features like built-in exhaust systems.
• Built greenhouses: These are the most solid and well-engineered of the bunch, but you’re going to pay for that quality. Costs on these vary widely, and you’ll need to find and contact a contractor in your area for a quote, but price tags can easily run into five figures.

Your preference depends on your goals, your budget, and your level of motivation. By and large, though, there isn’t a high threshold for converting your existing greenhouse to blackout mode or purchasing all you need to set one up from scratch.

Why is winter a good time for a light deprivation greenhouse?

The truth is that light deprivation greenhouses are useful all year round — whenever you want your plants to flower ahead of schedule. So even if you purchased the system with winter in mind, it would transfer pretty seamlessly to other seasons as well.

That said, there are a couple of advantages that a light deprivation setup can provide in colder weather.

• Keep it growing: With proper covering and ventilation, your plants and flowers can continue to thrive in a light deprivation greenhouse, even during inhospitable weather. A good light deprivation setup helps eliminate condensation buildup, which can occur in the winter and is the sworn enemy of healthy plants everywhere.
• Keep warm: In colder weather, the shading, or “blackout,” materials trap warmth inside the greenhouse, providing extra heat when plants need it most.

In a nutshell, light deprivation greenhouses increase your crop yields throughout all four seasons, including winter, when most gardeners choose not to grow crops at all. If you’re motivated to continue producing fruit or flowers without an off-season in your growing schedule, a light deprivation greenhouse may be for you.

There are plenty of ways you can use your greenhouse, but here are our top five tips for making the most of your smaller greenhouse!

Stagger your shelves

Adding extra shelves to your greenhouse is often the first step toward making the most of your small greenhouse, but where you put the shelves and what size shelves you use; can make all the difference.

Place the shelves that stick out the farthest on the bottom, then place shorter shelves over them. This gives taller plants room to grow without limiting the space you have available for other plants. You can also add multiple smaller shelves on the same level with space between them, providing breaks for hanging vines to trail or tall plants to grow.

Sketching your shelving layout before hanging can be helpful for this tip! It’s no fun to get halfway through hanging your shelves, only to realize you’ve made an easily avoidable mistake. Additionally, make sure to hang your shelves securely to avoid falling shelves and broken flower pots.

Depending on the material your greenhouse is made of, you may not be able to hang additional shelving. If that’s the case, look for smaller free-standing shelves, which you may be able to stack. Attach the shelves to each other for added stability.

Use hooks to hang potted plants

It’s easy to forget your greenhouse’s ceiling is an available space. There are plenty of vegetables and flowers that can grow in hanging pots, and secure hooks are easy to find at most hardware stores. You may need a ladder or step stool to reach the ceiling, and be sure the hooks attach securely before hanging your plants.

Vining plants are an obvious choice for this, and tomatoes are likely the first vegetable that comes to mind when thinking about a hanging garden. Morning glories, strawberries, and peppers are other good choices. However, smaller non-vining plants like lettuce, chives, and mint can also grow well in hanging baskets. You’ll just need to take the basket down to properly harvest them.

Rotate which plants are in your greenhouse

Plants have varying levels of cold tolerance, and you can use that to your advantage when moving plants into your greenhouse for the winter. You should move your most sensitive plants to the greenhouse first, along with any seeds or seedlings you’re starting. However, plants that are a bit more cold tolerant can stay outside for longer, giving you more time to arrange your plants and plan how you will use your space.

Plants moved into the greenhouse early may not stay there the entire time, either. You might find that some plants are better suited for the indoors, vegetables may be harvested, and unfortunately, some plants may die. In these cases, you can move those plants out of the greenhouse, allowing you to bring the ones left outside in before the cold becomes dangerous to them.

Don’t forget to use the floor room

Not every plant needs to be on a shelf. The floor of your greenhouse is an equally valid place to keep your plants. You should leave a bit of walking room, so you can reach your plants without tripping, but otherwise, you can put your plants wherever makes the most sense to you. If your greenhouse doesn’t have a solid floor, you can even plant your garden choices directly into the ground of your greenhouse.

If you’re concerned about the ground being too cold in the winter, spread a tarp, layer of newspaper, or even a bit of mulch underneath the plants. You can even use a small box or stand to lift them up just enough so they aren’t in contact with the ground. Want to know how to heat a small greenhouse? You can use compost!

Focus on smaller or faster-growing plants

When space is limited, you need to maximize the number of plants you can grow and harvest. An easy way to do this is to focus on growing plants you can harvest young (like kale, spinach, and lettuce). Additionally, if you grow smaller plants, you’ll be able to fit more in the greenhouse overall.

In principle, this may sound obvious. However, you can extend it beyond the plant itself. Plants that are small and grow quickly often have smaller root systems, which means they need smaller pots. Some plants that you harvest early can even be harvested as sprouts. Since the sprouts won’t be left to mature, you can plant more of them than you otherwise would in a single pot.

Whether you just want a place to keep your seeds during winter or plan on growing a full harvest of vegetables, these tips will help you achieve your gardening goals. Not every tip will work for every gardener, so be sure to test them out and see what fits your gardening style the best! Remember that there’s no harm in trying out a new idea, and if you absolutely can’t make it work, you can always get a second small greenhouse.

Take a look at these simple steps for safeguarding your barbecue grill and your grilling tools. No matter what kind of grill you have, you’ll be flipping burgers in no time with these helpful tips once spring has properly sprung.

How do I winterize my outdoor barbecue grill?

Most outdoor garden barbecue grills are mobile and can move around easily. However, some grills are a more permanent part of a large patio or outdoor kitchen. Some of these are connected to a dedicated gas line or surrounded by brick or stone.

If you have a stationary outdoor grill, you can still follow these tips, except, of course, for the ones that involve moving the unit.

These tips include:

• Start with a good deep cleaning. This not only keeps your grill in good shape but helps keep bugs, rodents, and other critters away. Turn all burners on as high as they’ll go and let it run with the lid closed for about 15 minutes. Once the grill is completely cool, scrub each grate thoroughly with a grill brush or a balled up wad of aluminum foil.
• If you have a propane tank, shut off the gas, unfasten the burner, disconnect the gas tubes, and remove the tank.
• Coat the burners and other metal parts with cooking oil (cooking spray works great), which helps repel moisture and prevent rust.
• Inspect other internal components and clean as needed with a wire brush.

Looking to winterize your smoker? These steps work well for barbecue smokers too. If you’re using a pellet system, make sure to remove and thoroughly clean it.

How do I store my barbecue grill during cold weather?

Whether you’re storing your grill indoors or out in the elements, you can do so safely while protecting your unit. Check out these tips and apply them to your own storage strategy.

• Is your grill staying outside this winter? Turn off the propane tank but leave it connected, then cover the entire grill with a protective cover.
• For those storing their grill indoors, leave the tank outside. Even small gas leaks pose a serious explosion hazard in enclosed spaces, including garages.
• Store disconnected tanks outside in an upright position and away from dryer vents, furnace vents, and similar areas. (Also, keep away from places where children play.)
• Wrap the burner unit in plastic wrap or a plastic bag. This is another good way to keep pests out of your unit.

If your neck of the woods has milder winters, keeping your outdoor grill indoors won’t be as important. However, storing your grill inside can give you a distinct advantage over the elements in harsher weather. Even if you don’t have the room to bring your grill indoors, consider placing it in a shed or even under the overhang of your roof.

How do I store barbecue tools?

When it comes to storing barbecue tools, there are a few simple rules to follow that keep your spatulas, tongs, forks, and brushes looking clean and pristine.

• If possible, it’s best not to store barbecue tools outside. Bring them indoors and set them out of harm’s way, be it in your garage, a safe drawer, or another space in your house where kids and pets can’t reach them.
• Many tools come with their own storage cases or containers (hopefully, you saved it!). This will provide ideal storage for your utensils.
• Looking to save space? Hang your tools from hooks in the garage or kitchen, or store them in an old toolbox.
• As with the grill burner, wrap tools in plastic wrap or a plastic bag to keep moisture and other elements out.

Outdoor grills can be a perfect cornerstone for your patio, pool party, or your next Tuesday night at home with the family. Taking good care of the unit is like taking care of any investment — it may take a bit of time and elbow grease, but your shiny, pest-free grill will be a welcome sight after the dreary winter months.

If you are new to growing plants in a greenhouse, then you probably don’t understand why temperature and humidity are important. Yes, choosing your greenhouse’s irrigation system and considering your greenhouse’s lights are crucial components for growing plants. But temperature and humidity are factors that weigh heavily on your plants’ health. Whether you are growing vegetables year-round or simply plants that look beautiful, there are steps you can take to support your plants’ growth.

The perfect temperature and humidity

While each plant is different, the ideal greenhouse temperature for most plants and vegetables is 80°F. or 27°C. Most plants will grow healthy in this temperature. For humidity, the higher the temperature, the higher the humidity you want. The chart below provides the ideal greenhouse temperature and humidity comparisons:

However, 80°F. is simply a general guideline. You should look up the ideal temperature for each of your plants if you are worried about disease or infection. For example, if you are growing crops that love a ton of sun, such as tomatoes or melons, then your temperature should be warmer. In general, do not rise above 90°F. (32°C) and do not fall below 75°F. (24°C). Sticking in this range will keep most plants alive and healthy.

The proper temperature must be maintained because these plants are growing in an artificial setting. In such a setting, the temperature and humidity can increase quickly, especially if you have a lot of plants. Thankfully, there are many ways to control the temperature so your plants thrive.

Controlling the temperature and humidity

The temperature in a greenhouse is driven by the amount of sunshine and ventilation. The point of greenhouses is to trap the sun’s heat; while that makes it easy to get a hot room, it does not make it easy to control that heat. However, there are a few simple ways to moderate the temperature and humidity.

The biggest thing to create is ventilation. While that could mean installing vents in the roof, it could also simply mean opening windows and doors to create a cross breeze. You could also use air conditioning to bring the temperature down. During the winter season, pull in the cold air and exhaust the warm air with fans to reduce the humidity.

Depending on what you are growing, you can even trick the plants into thinking they are in a different season. Extra lights can imitate the sun during the winter while heaters can increase the temperature. However, this can be set up to be almost fully automatic using greenhouse timers. This brings us to the tools you can use for proper greenhouse temperature and humidity monitoring.

Tools for greenhouse monitoring

There are great tools for a greenhouse that can easily maintain it. While these devices are not necessary, greenhouses are artificial settings that need proper maintenance and care at all times, especially during the off-season. These tools make that much easier.

Greenhouse temperature alarm

This alarm tracks potential problems in the greenhouse, such as power outages, temperature fluctuations, water damage, and bug intrusion. Some models go one step further and will send you a text message of any such occurrence.

Greenhouse temperature control system

This tool provides proper and dependable heating and cooling options for your greenhouse. Keeping the temperature at an optimum level all year-round is important. Despite the outside weather, you can maintain the temperature to whatever is needed.

Greenhouse temperature sensors

One of the coolest things (no pun intended) about greenhouses is the chance to automate them. Sensors monitor the temperature in the greenhouse and can automatically activate vented roofs, side vents, and fans to keep the temperature at the optimum level. Some sensor models can also alert you if these systems stop running or run into a problem.

Remote temperature monitor

Keeping track of the greenhouse temperature throughout the day is very important. How can you know how to grow your plants without an accurate reading of how hot it is throughout the day? A temperature monitor lets you see broad data about the temperature over a defined period of time. The temperature is recorded so you can view it at any moment.

Keeping optimum temperatures and humidity is very important for keeping your plants healthy. While it depends on which vegetables and plants you are growing, there are tools and tips anyone can implement to increase their chances at growing crops year-round, automatic and (almost) hassle-free.