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How To Grow Amazingly Healthy Plants In Your Greenhouse For Profit Or Pleasure

Here are some tips to help you grow amazingly healthy plants in your greenhouse for profit or pleasure:

Fertilizers:

If you use cloth, it can be placed outside as well as inside for cooling and shading. In fact any type of shading used outside, but with an air space between the shading and the glass, will help you operate your greenhouse more economically.

Most growing plants need fertilizing at least twice a month. Liquid fertilizing is very popular. Some growers dilute fertilizer )i or % recommended strength and then give it at weekly intervals. Apply fertilizer to moist soil, for if the soil is dry, the chemical may burn feeder roots and cause a setback.Types of Plant Food

There are many brands of organic and inorganic fertilizers on the market. If you prefer an organic type, I suggest fish emulsion, Ovene (a stick form of concentrated sheep manure), or liquid manure. You can prepare liquid manure by placing a half bushel of cow manure in a burlap bag and steeping it in a half tub of water for 2 to 3 weeks. Dilute this "brew" with water—to the color of weak tea—and then apply to your greenhouse plants. If you prefer the inorganic fertilizers, choose Ra-pid-gro, Hyponex, Plant Marvel, Spoonit, or something similar.

When plants are resting, they do not need fertilizer. Bulbs— amaryllis, haemanthus, other amaryllids, and tuberous or rhizomatous gesneriads—need no fertilizer and a minimum of water during their dormant period.

A complete commercial fertilizer includes proper proportions of the three main plant foods—nitrogen, phosphorus or phosphoric acid, and potash or potassium (N, P, and K). Percentages are numbered on the container in that order. A favorite with many growers is 5-10-5. This means the fertilizer contains 5 per cent nitrogen, 10 per cent phosphorus, and 5 per cent potash.

Shading

Learning when and how to shade my plants was for me the most difficult phase of greenhouse operation. You can purchase various shading compounds (one called Garlands is preferred by many growers). Cement, liquefied with a mixture of water and linseed oil and diluted until it is just thick enough to adhere to glass, seems to work best for me. I brush it on the glass with an old broom extended by a stick fastened to the handle. This shading holds for the summer, even through hard rains, and a small amount adheres during the winter. By spring, when I give the greenhouse the annual housecleaning, the shading has about disappeared and the glass is ready for another coat.

Since you want plants to reach a saleable stage in minimum time, you will have to pay considerable attention to fertilizing. A regular program is necessary. Decide on dates when you will fertilize plants, then try not to deviate from schedule unless the weather upsets the expected rate of plant development.

Oganic Gardening Tips By: Gerald Mason