With September comes the end of summer and the start of fall and dropping temperatures. If you are a home gardener this could mean the end of garden season until the spring, but it doesn’t have to be. By getting a greenhouse for your home, you can set yourself up with a way to continue your gardening through the winter months. It’s not as easy as summer growing, but you’ll still find the satisfaction in growing your own vegetables during the cold months.

Start with a Quality Greenhouse

To be able to grow winter plants you are going to need to start with a good quality greenhouse structure. A greenhouse is an enclosure that you can construct where you can control the temperature and humidity in an enclosed space, no matter the season. By opting for good quality pressure treated framing, and polycarbonate panels you can have a growing space that is not only going to give you a place to grow your plants, but is also built to last and handle whatever weather comes your way. You can build a greenhouse yourself, or you can also hire a company like Capitol Sheds who will install a pre-assembled greenhouse on your property quickly and professionally.

Winterizing a Greenhouse

Once you have a greenhouse you have to ensure you properly winterize it. Before you start moving in your winter crops, you’ll want to make sure you clean up the greenhouse, something akin to “spring cleaning”. You should remove any organic materials from your summer harvests, it will help get the soil ready for new crops and get rid of anything that may be growing on dying crops. As well, it’s very important to scrub down and disinfect any walls and equipment in your greenhouse, with changing temperatures you may find yourself with a mold or bacteria problem that could decimate any crops you do plant for the winter. Lastly, this is also the opportune time to do any repairs needed to the building or to moving parts of your equipment so that they will last through the dropping temperatures until your spring.

Planting the Right Crops for Winter

When choosing the plants to grow for winter in your greenhouse you have to know what kind of temperatures you will be dealing with and plan your crops accordingly. Heaters can help keep temperatures up within a greenhouse, but they are still going to be lower than during the summer, and you’re going to end up with less light overall as well with shorter days which means you need to plant tolerant crops to get any worthwhile harvest.

Vegetables to consider: beets, garlic, broccoli, kale, Brussel sprouts, lettuce, cabbage, parsley, carrots, radishes, cauliflower, spinach, celery, Swiss chard, cilantro, turnips.

Flowers to consider: amaryllis, azalea, Christmas cactus, freesia, hyacinth, impatiens, larkspur, nasturtium, pansy, primrose, snapdragon.

When planning out your winter crops, try to stagger your planting to achieve a continuous and prolonged harvest-time.

Satisfaction of Winter Crops

You may have thought producing home vegetables in the winter too difficult for the inexperienced, but with a greenhouse from Capitol Sheds you can get ready for year-round growing that will keep your home full of healthy food.

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