Winter green house .

Hi, can anyone tell me what veg i can grow in an unheated green house through the winter please. :cnfs:
Not sure what to plant and it seems a shame to waste it when i could be growing some veg.
Thanks su.

 

May as well just buy a cheap paraffin heater from a car boot if you want to carry things on through the winter. I have my cabbages in pots in the greenhouse ready for winter and to keep the butterflys/catterpillers off them.Line the glass with bubble wrap too to conserve heat.

 

Potatoes for Xmas (in containers) See JBA seed potatoes and how-to-do-things

Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Dwarf French Beans (Sow September I think)

T&M have a Carrot variety (Nantes Frubund) for Winter growing and suitable for containers. Reports I've seen of it are mixed, and I thought the harvest was much later than I expected - later (I think) than an early sowing of Amsterdam Forcing world give .... but that's not really the point, is it?!!

 

Kirsten,

Are you growing in the ground or pots in your vast expanse of greenhouses and polytunnels.

Have you any experience of growing cut 'n come again through the winter?

Will the dwarf french beans need a pollinator?

Ta

 

I don't have any experience of Poly tunnels (had planned to buy one for my "Crops", but managed to get a large greenhouse off eBay cheap enough to have the joy of that instead)

I grew in pots last year (first year here; but have always used Pots in the past). This year growing in greenhouse border (except for some dwarf chillies that are in large pots - I expect I will give some away to Summer visitors :thumb

Replaced the greenhouse "soil" last Winter with half-and-half well rotted manure and rough compost. I grew Chard in the spring which was a great success - however, I didn't pay enough attention to where the Tomatoes etc would need to go, and they got in the way a bit (before I finally grubbed them out). So next year I will be more Nerdy and put sticks in for the Toms etc. and then plant the Chard to fit-in with them.

This Autumn I'm planning to grow much more for over Winter. Chard definitely (My DW and I really like that).

Also some Dwarf French Beans - they don't need insect polination, unlike Runners, so that makes them a good greenhouse choice, I reckon. I grew Climbing French [in the cropping greenhouse] this Spring, and they made loads of growth, but very few flowers, and only beat the outdoor crop by a week (despite the seed being sowed a month earlier - 01Apr for indeoor, 01May for Outdoor). Maybe the manure has too much Nitrogen, but I thought beans were supposed to like that?

I will also try some Winter lettuce.

Potatoes and Carrots will be in containers.

 

Hi Kristen. Just reading through what you said.

"Maybe the manure has too much Nitrogen, but I thought beans were supposed to like that?"

Don't all legumes 'fix' their own Nitrogen ? If so, my guess is that they wouldn't need any added nitrogen, would only add to leaf growth, I reckon.
Cheers...freddy.

 

Yup, I'm with you on that Freddy, but I thought that for Beans one was supposed to dig a trench and fill it full of manure?

This stuff has been in a heap for 4 years, so not "fresh" ... but still plenty of Nitrogen there for sure ... for example, I shouldn't have mulched around the pond with it :( pond water went a nice shade of Tea colour, and the fish exhibited classic Ammonia shock :( Sorted now though, but the Heron has made off with most of them ... 2 x :(

 

Hi again Kristen. I thought that the reason manure is added to the trench was so that water would be retained. Whether or not there is any significant nitrogen within the manure, I wouldn't know, but if it has, then I reckon it wouldn't help at all. Don't some folks just add cardboard/newspaper to their trenches ?

 

Yup, you are right, it is indeed to retain moisture - and any old Cardboard / Grass clippings etc will do. Perhaps I'm mis-remembering that Manure was an option for "the trench" ...

For sure if Manure is in the trench there will be plenty of Nitrogen included!

 

Dr. H. says "Dig in Autumn nd add an abundant suplie of compost or well rotted manure" also ".. produce dissappointing results in hungry, badly drained soil"

Suggests to me that Manure should be OK ... but ...

Maybe the effect is a lot of leaf, initially, and then a v. heavy crop (which I may well get), whereas what I was after was an early crop !!

 

Kristen, it can all get a bit confusing I reckon. Somewhere I read that manure has no value as a fertilizer, but rather creates an environment where nutrients within the soil can be released effectively. Or was that Lime ?