March 2010


So.. Now we have a greenhouse in its infant stages, glazed, painted, but minus any automatic ventilation, that will have to wait until my bank balance recovers.

As its quite early in the year, solar heat aint a serious problem and I have decided to plant strawberries under glass and cultivate them hydroponically. I was introduced to hydroponic cultivation about 30 years ago when I worked with a man who's fatherinlaw was one of the first to study the subject at Cambridge. Somewhere in my archives I have a book of his writen in the 1930's in which he was a contributing writer. I remember they used all sorts of growing media including sand and gravel, but I think his major contribution was the development of the soluble nutrients made specially for the plants needs, which I intend to talk about later.

Here below are the basic components I used for my hydroponic strawberry plantation, they include; a large black plastic garden tray complete with three 11 litre square black plastic pots, a 30 litre black plastic header tank, a 40mm solvent weld plastic pond connector, 40mm solvent weld elbows, solvent weld 'T's (the 'T' shown is a crossover tee) 40mm solvent weld tubing.

The hyroponic nutrient delivery system starts with a 1000 litre per hour aquatic submersible pump (shown with green sponge filter) place into a 30 litre header tank, 4mm LDPE dripper pipe, 16mm black delivery hose, 16mm 'T', 16mm to 4mm cross junctions, 4mm flood drippers (blue). Naturally, a few basic tools are required, a hacksaw, various holesaws, pozidrive screwdriver and a kettle for boiling water! (To enable fitting of pipework) and of course, an electric or battery powered drill.

The square pots which you see in the photo are filled with a medium which is a mixture of 20 % standard Perlite, 80% Hydroleca, Hydroleca is an expanded clay product, quite light in weight, but heavy enough to support and hold down decent sized plants, tomatoes for instance. I use the Perlite to improve the capilary action in the medium and to improve oxygenation around the root system. As an experiment I am growing tomatoes and cucumbers with a mixture of 60% Hydroleca, 20% Standard Perlite and 20% peat based compost. I use a timer to limit the flooding cycles on this plot to half hour intervals with one hour of rest, this is applied to daylight hours only with no nutrients during dark hours. So far the results are quite astounding! The cucumber plant has been in production now for at least 5 weeks and has given us about 20 mature fruits over that period. There are still at least another 20 to mature on the one plant with no problems of disease but ladders needed to tie the plant to the roof of the greenhouse!.

Prepare to Garden Under Glass!

A greenhouse has been high on my list of priorities for the last 20 years; thats how long we've lived at out current house. The snag was, we have always suffered from severe 'financial cramp' plus I didn't have the knowledge to construct a 'period style' wooden structure.

However, over the past few years I've collected together a library of old gardening and handymans books, some of which contain material which was originally written in the early part of the 20th century with the layman in mind, but by todays standards, the guidance and construction given in them is way beyond the modern ameteur's ability and space. It was access to the old books which gave me the essential guidance to design my "Crystal Palace" Allbeit, I am very lucky to have an insight into period woodworking construction along with a well stocked industrial workshop with period capabilities. In the winter of 2008 I put together a few drawings, made some experimental templates and worked out the best sizes for this new venture, taking a strong leaning towards economy and the reusing of secondhand materials.

It maybe sounds a contrary, but I started my workings on the layout of the roof structure and ventilation, taking into account the available widths of horticultural glass. My next move was to design and make up the end sections along with the entrance door. Finally I made the side frames into which I fitted hinged loose sashes for maximum ventilation. From the photos you can see that I have designed the greenhouse to stand upon a dwarf wall, because originally I had thoughts of lowering the floor of the greenhouse below the outside soil level to keep the whole structure below the height allowed by the planning authorities (4 metres maximum), but as it happened, the finished height was well within the limits.

Once I collated all the precise finished sizes, I prepared to lay the concrete footings and start building! I had never built a brick wall before, so.. I took to studying various building clips on 'Youtube' in conection with a DVD on basic bricklaying that I bought on Ebay. Its amazing what usful information one can extract from the 'ether' these days! Where would we be with out the internet?

The facing bricks I bought locally as the end of a 'run' at a cost of £150 for 3 full packs of Baggeridge Rustic Multi's delivered on site. This amount left me sufficient bricks to build the walls to about 2 foot 6 high and lay a dry brick floor in the greenhouse. The marble door step I used was aquired locally from a local salvage yard and was originally part of a staircase in Hull univerisity. That was a bargain at a tenner, but nearly killed me lifting it out of the back of my Volvo! Apart from the bricks and the ballast for the footings, this entire greenhouse was transported from my workshop in the back of a Volvo estate, (including all the glass which weighs over half a ton) I carried all the glass on specially made pallets in three separate journeys. Most of the glass came from a liquidated tomato grower in Holderness.