Greenhouse in the winter.

Jumpy

Heya,

Just wondering has anyone set up a greenhouse for the irish winter.

I was going to try an experiment with lights and a heater to see if I can get tomatoes and aubergines growing. My plants are really small at the moment as I started late.
I know they need sun to ripen. Has anyone ever used lights in a greenhouse before?
I am tempted to try and rig up a solar panel for charging up a set of LED grow lights.

Am I doomed to failure here? I am new to this vegie growing stuff and thanks to LIDL I have this new greenhouse to play with. However I am painfully aware of how close the end of growing season is.

Corsendonk

Well the commercial Irish greenhouse growers grow from Jan to Nov but the energy costs are horrendous at times. It should be possible to grown in an Irish Winter as long as your greenhouse is sturdy and not in a direct draft and your heater doesn't give out. Greenhouses can loose 80% of there energy at night so you need a good heater.

Jumpy

Corsendonk wrote: »

Well the commercial Irish greenhouse growers grow from Jan to Nov but the energy costs are horrendous at times. It should be possible to grown in an Irish Winter as long as your greenhouse is sturdy and not in a direct draft and your heater doesn't give out. Greenhouses can loose 80% of there energy at night so you need a good heater.

I going to invest in one of those little gas ones.

Its not a sturdy greenhouse. Its a LIDL job with a metal frame and plastic covered. Its not massive so should be easy enough to heat at low cost. To be fair though, the bags of salad we used to buy at the store used to cost us close to 3 euro each. We have grown and eaten the equivalent of at least 30 bags in the past 2 months. As long as the heating costs dont go much over that, we are even. Add tomatos to that, which I havent started growing yet and we could save even more (initial costs aside of course).

Its the lack of light I am concerned about. Even if the tomatos do fruit, they are going to stay green.
I was looking up stuff about the LED grow lights, but 90% of the info on them is people telling you how to use them to grow weed. Something I dont intend to be doing.
I wish someone would write up how to use them in a greenhouse to grow tomatos

looksee

Just an opinion, not from experience, but I think you are at nothing. It might be worth keeping your young plants going till maybe end September, but after that, between cold and lack of light I doubt you will get anything. And if we get one good gale the greenhouse will be in someone else's garden.

Jumpy

Only if the wind can pick up a 30 kg bag of compost and a load of paving tiles.

My next door neighbours already warned me about the possibility of flight

TheFatMan

Hi Jumpy
the Lidl green houses might barely survive an irish winter. Mine got thru 1 but it was pretty beaten up in the spring, the plastic will start to go brittle in the frost/ice conditions. And mine didnt take flight either

Jumpy

Did you heat it?