|
|
I was interested in building my own composting bin along the beehive-like lines suggested by Alys Fowler in her book that I like very much, “The Thrifty Gardener” (link on the right hand side of this page), but we bought a plastic bin for the time being.
These aren’t commandments – it just seemed a marginally catchy title, if only for the first nanosecond. They are just good practice in my experience:
- Build the compost heap in thin layers and mix ingredients.
- Regularly fork over or mix the compost to aerate it. Air flow is a must.
- Soil layers are good every so often.
- Vegetable scraps are a good ingredient…
- … so are tea bags ….
- … and cardboard or newspaper, preferably in small pieces. Wool and cotton likewise.
- Very small pieces of wood and small twigs are also a useful constituent.
- Composted bark works well with the above as well.
- You can also rot weeds down in water for a few weeks and add them, with care.
- Add water if the heap is drying out too much. It needs to be kept at least slightly moist.
Having opted for the plastic bin this time, laying the heap on bricks placed on their edges to further help air circulate was an idea from Alys’ book. After about three months now, this all seems to be working well, starting to decompose without mess. In our case, we don’t put leaves in as we have a separate open pile that will create a nice leaf mulch …. eventually.
A very interesting idea to help deal with greenhouse pest control, as mentioned most notably in books by Stefan Buczacki, is to keep lizards in the greenhouse.
The green anole is a very active climber and will escape through vents but the brown anole or anolis sagrei naturally lives closer to the ground and looks a real candidate for the post of pest control officer.
 Brown anole. Image licensed from fotolia. Unfortunately it looks like this probably only works for a specialist gardener who maintains a warm greenhouse. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t viable and while it is interesting, I thought about the following points:
1. Maintaining the temperature at quite a high level of about 70 degrees fahrenheit or higher. You could consider keeping them in a spare habitat during the winter but that’s when many pests become active on the plants you are over-wintering or propagating in the greenhouse.
2. Stopping the anoles escaping through an open door means being vigilant. Would also need to put mesh around the louvres. Also the greenhouse heater would need a very fine mesh surround or fried anole might be on the menu, plus potentially a new heater. I also suspect that if the dog sees lizards in the greenhouse he might get unduly interested and from the outside that could get, errr, dramatic?
 Brown anole. Image licensed from fotolia 3. Would they eat other things than pests in the greenhouse? Unlikely as they are insect feeders.
4. Anoles of the same sex do get aggressive with each other, although there would be plenty of space. Care and more greenhouse cleaning would also be required.
5. Best advice is to initially house a male and two or three females, but in the right conditions they breed quickly. Each adult currently costs around £10 to £15 each to buy, plus a fair amount of looking after while they settle.
So for the moment, the jury is out on this one for us, but it might be worth a serious experiment in future.
What was that about spring approaching? Surpised by the amount of snow overnight, which you can see on the edges of the pictures. So it was back to the greenhouse and at least get some seeds into a heated propagator.
Taken through the lid of the propagator, at the back we’ve got sweet peas. Front left-hand side has coreopsis, which are new for us, and on the right-hand side some minibel tomatoes.
The propagator is heated from underneath, so there is some slightly damp sharp sand under the trays. At the moment, temperatures vary significantly during the week in the greenhouse if and when the sun appears, so we are occasionally moving things around the staging to alter light and shade, particularly some orchids that we put out last week.
With the lid of the propagator removed, the second picture shows the trays from above, so the tomatoes are at the top right hand side in this shot. It won’t be long before the seeds need potting on, so here’s hoping for better weather!
 Hippeastrum One sign that spring’s approaching is this hippeastrum which we have had for five years. These are often sold as amaryllis because they are part of the same species but they bloom in spring, possibly even late winter, while the amaryllis that looks similar to this actually blooms in autumn. They also have a different flower, most hippeastrum types having a wider funnel shape. As a houseplant, it is kept on a windowsill in reasonable/full light, and thrives there, complete with its little squirrel and owl ornaments!
Still quiet. Early February, weather still holding things back and oh how I long for better weather. As well as generally improving one’s mood, there are so many jobs and ideas that need a break in the frost and rain cycle that we seem stuck in; the occasional sunny day isn’t helping. The plants in the greenhouse – triffids (lilies), fuchsias, a buddleia cutting that we took, some herb seeds, and loads of other stuff – are all thriving but aside from general maintenance stuff that takes little time at all, it’s all on hold. We have a few plants indoors as well, including an orchid and an aeonium. The latter gets shunted into the grrenhouse if the sunlight looks promising, but doesn’t get out for more than a single day very occasionally. My temperature records off the greenhouse just reinforce how grim the weather has been.
Not much to report after severe winter weather. It did cause us to cut back on various plans and a lot of jobs and projects have been deferred as a result, We had bought some tree lilies and have been unsurprised to see how they are growing, particularly with a decent greenhouse heater in action due to the weather. Shots below of:
- the lilies, christened triffids by me,
- the other stuff just being given a bit of winter storage
 tree lilies
 over wintering
 A hiccup. We have moved the magnolia back to its earlier position on the patio, nearer the house, after signs of frost damage to the leaves. It isn’t actually damage from frost but early morning dew on the leaves in its exposed position was then being caught by the sun coming around and over the house from first light, making it look similar to scorching.
We’ll let it recover, then come up with an alternative as things develop…
Having looked yet again at what’s around, I opted to make the greenhouse staging, because it is:
- easy to do
- can be customized to the size you require
- much cheaper
 - Four tips from this setup, which might not suit all tastes:
- you can hide screws neatly by working out the best way to build the frame
- use braces across the back; even a short one, as can be seen low down in the picture at the back, makes the staging very sturdy
- treated timber, as well as being inexpensive and resilient, gives a nice rustic appearance
- one advantage of the gravel base is that it will balance any unevenness.
We also ended up with some pine staging! Two pine wardrobe doors were opportunely at clearance prices from a large diy store, so with a mending plate across one small crack we got a large piece of staging very cheaply indeed.
As a slight variation on the theme, a potting table was made as well. Slatted staging aids air circulation through the greenhouse and around the plants, and we preferred wider slats for our purposes than others might choose.
Building the greenhouse took two of us just under two days and was relatively easy. 
The first picture shows the rear and side frames built and the trench for the electric cable can also be seen. The gravel has the weed control underlaid.
One very useful tip for this particular set-up, not stated by manufacturers, is to invest in a durable and weatherproof rubber strip that can sit under the frame base, all the way round. In this case it helps hold the ends of the fabric in place, but its real benefits are:
- It helps compensate for any unevenness in the base, though that needs to be as level as possible to begin with and is best accomplished by checking diagonally across the flagstones rather than simply lengthways around the edges.
- The greenhouse frame, with the glass in place, will bed into the rubber and there is some tolerance in the rubber to allow this to happen.
- It makes the frame exceptionally sturdy and stable.
Manufacturer’s instructions err on the side of caution, for understandable reasons. With experience, you know which instructions are more important than others. It didn’t apply in this case, but the general rule should be “if not sure, then follow the instructions”.
 There will be a vast range of scenarios based on greenhouse type and purpose, location and many other variables. The key is to plan and think it through.
Greenhouse ventilation is one of the most important aspects, and the second picture, shows the finished greenhouse structure with an optimum placement of roof vents diagonally opposed and louvres placed low in the sides on the other diagonal.
This is the easy part, the real challenges await!
The position of the greenhouse is convenient in our garden and fits a few of the conventional principles:
- The ridge will be positioned east-west
- It will not be overhung or under any future threat of anything overhanging
- It has a nice open aspect
The nearby fences are not an issue. I intend to build a hedge at the rear as a windbreak. I am hoping to make the hedge of fuchsia magellanica from around next April, but there may not prove to be entirely straightforward.
After a little deliberation I opted for an entirely gravel floor to the greenhouse, at least for the initial phase, with flagstones under the frame. The first picture shows things getting started, with some pegs marked up to measure heights from their top by putting a longer piece of wood atop them on which the spirit level can be placed.
The blue bin is holding stones retrieved from the soil which went as hardcore for a drive. The pink waste bag is just a kneeler.
Any turf that was dug out was turned upside down and buried beneath the soil I’m preparing to lawn. This old trick tends to keep weeds down while retaining decent drainage.
The second picture shows the outer flagstones almost complete, and the start of the greenhouse end of the trench for the electric cable. The inner layer of turf was being dug out, then needed levelling and more stones removing prior to putting in a weed fabric liner below the gravel bed. The flagstones are laid on sand and cement, in most cases using what I know as the star or five-point method, i.e. just the main blobs of sand and cement mix near the corners and in the centre of each flag. Since they won’t be taking much weight this is ok, but on the front end, nearest to the camera in the photos, as they will get more walking on, sand and cement was layered in.
By the way, anyone interested in general points about building greenhouses might find one of the articles I’ve written about greenhouse gardening useful, which touches on some of the general planning ideas.
|
|
