Alright this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today doing an episode on greenhouses.
So I was at a friend's house yesterday or the other day and he was talking.
John, why should I get a greenhouse?
So I want to share my ideas on why you should get a green house and show you my greenhouse.
So this greenhouse here is a small six by eight greenhouse.
It was actually purchased at a store called Harbor Freight Tool.
Let's see, they have actually, they're probably the best place to buy a greenhouse.
You could do harborfreight.com and if you are buying a greenhouse I recommend buying
the larges one you can that will fit in your space.
So I bought a ten by twelve that we building soon and you'll see that episode coming up
shorting, but for now I have a six by eight and as you can see I have plants everywhere
and it is just too dang small.
So why have a greenhouse?
Well there's a couple reasons.
Number one is for germination.
So when you're starting seeds, there's an optimal temperature range that seeds like
to start in.
So this happens because in nature when plants make seeds they'll maybe fall in the wintertime
and they'll stay dormant all winter.
But when the temperature warms up just right and the conditions are right the seed will
sprout and make a new plant.
So in the greenhouse because it is enclosed you can control the temperature much more
effectively than you can outside.
You can also if you're not growing a lot of stuff, you could also make a little mini greenhouse
in your house or something.
But if you're really serious and you want to grow a serious amount of food you should
really purchase a greenhouse.
So you can see here I have many different things starting from red Aztec spinach, I
think there's some magenta lamb's quarters here, cilantro in the back, this one's red
orach, all kinds of cool things.
I don't even know what this guy is.
Anyways, kale, this is one called kangkong, it's actually an Asian green.
A lot of things growing in here are really kind of unique things that you can't really
easily find to purchase.
So anyways, buy the greenhouse you can start your seeds, so that's number one.
So as you can see I have many flats here labeled.
This is some mache or corn salad that got planted which is probably not quite the ultimate
summer crop here, sea kale, yeah all kinds of different starts growing here.
Actually this is some Jerusalem artichokes that I started, actually I didn't even buy
the seeds for that, I bought the tubers and actually forgot about eating them in the fridge
and then took them out and actually planted them and they're coming up.
They're related to the sunflower family and they make actually a delicious low starch
tuber that can be eaten raw.
So really delicious.
Over her we have malabar spinach.
So malabar spinach is a green, an Asian green, that you can eat, just pick the leaves off.
So you basically just come over here and you want to pick a leaf off and if you know what
purslane is it has texture like purslane so it's kind of like kind of mucilaginous.
Really good green, you can't usually find this to buy anywhere in farmers markets.
But yeah, starting seeds.
Number one, controlling the environment.
So you control the temperature in here.
So on a hot day here in the summer time it's been getting, touching almost a hundred degrees,
in the nineties.
So it's been getting too hot in my greenhouse.
So actually you could get a shade cloth which probably costs a lot more money than a blue
tarp.
So I put a blue tarp up to shade the plants because otherwise it would just get way too
hot.
You can see I've got some actually, it's a misting system up here.
Let me go ahead and turn that on.
So I have a drip system in here and there's drip that runs around the edge, the perimeter
and we don't have it set up on every plant because we're about to take this down.
But you see in here I have some misters and they're making, you can kind of hear it, they're
kind of making a nice fine spray on plants and you don't want to necessarily water in
the middle of the day because it's not good for the plants but I just want to show you
the misting system.
So in the greenhouse here actually I popped up the spigot.
I popped it up right here so it's easier to water in here.
So let me go ahead and turn the misters off.
So controlling the environment, starting your seeds because they are going to germinate
much more effectively.
The other thing is controlling bugs.
So because hopefully your greenhouse is enclosed environment like your house, there might be
a lot of spiders and bugs and things outside your house.
But inside your house you don't really get that many bugs.
So the same thing holds true with a greenhouse.
Inside your greenhouse, since it's a controlled environment you're not going to get all the
problems with bugs and pests and stuff.
So for example, a snail could wipe out like, if you had this outside a snail could get
in and literally wipe out flats of stuff.
If a bird got in and you're starting your seeds outside and a bird was in there, the
bird will just come and eat the seeds because that's what birds do.
So inside the greenhouse it's a controlled environment where you won't have any problems
with pests, or very minimal or they'll be able to be controlled easier.
So actually you could see, I put actually a sticky-tape trap up over there which has
actually caught a lot of pests and bugs and things but also I guess it probably dropped
on the ground a couple times too and caught some dirt.
The other thing we have in here is actually a thermostatically controlled fan.
So actually I have it set up here, you can maybe see that up on the top, it's actually
set to come on at anything hotter than eighty-one degrees it's going to turn on and keep running
until it gets the temperature down.
So you can see it's currently ninety one degrees right there and it wants to get the temperature
down to eight-one.
So it's going to work and stay on all day until it gets down there, which might be not
until the evening, but it's going to stay on and at least keep the temperature, not
let it rise any hotter than it is.
This is actually, just a, actually a window fan that luckily enough fits right into greenhouse
opening.
Optimally, actually I already have it, just haven't installed it, I have a solar fan that
actually runs on the sun.
So it would come when it's hot outside and then not work when the sun's not out or not
shining.
So we have, so yeah you want to keep it, keep the temperature controlled.
So controlling bugs and pests, starting your seeds.
The other thing is extending your growing season.
So luckily I'm here in California and my growing season is quite long, actually it never ends
for some crops.
So things like kale and lettuces, things I can grow year round.
Of course I can't grow tomatoes year round and here's a little tomato start.
But by having a greenhouse I can extend the growing season.
So something I did last year actually, and here's an example actually, last year I planted
a whole bunch of pepper plants and we planted it out in the front yard and at the end of
season actually we dug up the root balls.
We dug up the root balls and stuck them in these large pots.
I think they're several gallon pots.
We stuck them in the pots and we put them in the greenhouse.
We, some of them we trimmed back, some of them we didn't.
They lived over the winter in the greenhouse.
They didn't put out any leaves too much, maybe a little bit, they didn't put on any fruit,
but they lived.
Then when they came back the following season they were a lot stronger and actually now
they are actually fruiting and actually have ripe fruit, there's a ripe pepper on there
that are ready to harvest whereas ones I planted from starts are not yet ready for harvest.
This is the same thing that actually happened with a tomato plant.
I dug up my three favorite varieties that I grew last year and dug up the root balls,
we trimmed them back and put them in the green house and you can see down there there's some
ripe cherry tomatoes on there.
So extending your season.
So also you could grow things in the winter time here in California.
While I do have a year round growing season for some crops, things grow a lot slower in
the winter time.
So things grow a lot faster when there's more light like in the summertime, maybe when it's
a little bit warmer, when it's cold things don't grow quite as fast.
So in the greenhouse it'll allow you grow things and have them grow at a much faster
rate and just keep them coming.
Another reason for having a greenhouse is growing unique foods and tropical foods that
you normally couldn't otherwise grow.
So you can see here actually you have a banana plant right there.
It actually will grow here in the greenhouse and if I left it outside like I did in years
past it wouldn't make it.
Here are so more katuk, actually this is my katuk experiment in the greenhouse.
They’re not quite as hardy as the ones in the hydroponic so the goal is actually to
transfer these out into the hydroponics.
I grow actually this other aloe, actually it's called Japanese aloe and this is a non-bitter
aloe.
So you actually could eat the leaves off that and it's not going to be bitter like the regular
aloe you would buy at the store.
They're actually quite tasty.
Other things I'm growing in here are more tropicals.
So I have some guava that are actually outside for the summertime, but in the back here,
one of my favorite plants it's actually a miracle berry plant.
Forget it, I couldn't' grow this one if I didn't have the greenhouse.
There's surinam cherries I have, and just some, oh this one's actually the leaf ginseng
it's going to seed you can see all the seeds down there.
Couldn't grow that either.
So those are the couple of reasons for having a greenhouse, highly recommend buying a greenhouse
if you're serious about food production and buy the largest one you can.
You can get a ten by twelve at Harbor Freight.
Currently the price is about seven hundred dollars then if you get on their email list
they do occasionally send out twenty percent off coupons.
So you could get it for around six hundred bucks, ten by twelve greenhouse.
You want to, if you build it, you want built it to the specifications but do an internet
search on how to upgrade it because these are basic, entry-level greenhouses but you
can make them stronger.
For example, my greenhouse I actually put on a redwood base right there that we seeded
it onto to make the height a little bit higher and make it a little bit stronger.
We did a little bit of reinforcing.
We actually siliconed all the seams and whatnot.
But, that's about all for this episode, John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com and remember
you can grow your own greens!