This article is going to kick off the most important part of your greenhouse garden-the garden itself. This is another step where you don’t want to just plant seeds or buy plants and hope for the best. You’ve to put the effort into building your greenhouse and making sure it has all the amenities that fit your needs to make sure that your plants can thrive.
So before you actually plant, propagate, or buy your plants, you first want to establish the necessities like soil, nutrition, bench systems, and various ways to grow plants.
BENCH SYSTEMS AND SHELVES
Having systems like this in place in your greenhouse is a great way to organize the inside of your structure and keep potted plants safe. Shelves and benches are where you will stage your plants, but let’s start with the main types of benches you can use:
- Slatted: This is going to be your more traditional bench. It sits around two to three feet above your greenhouse floor and has wood or metal slats. This is a great way to circulate air around your plants.
- Netted: These are much like the slatted benches, except with wire or plastic netting. It provides air circulation. The major drawback to netted and slatted benches is that they aren’t ideal if you’re using an automatic watering system. They are also not great as workstations when potting plants.
- Solid: The top is made from a solid flat sheet of metal, wood, or plastic, and the other shelves are usually slats that run horizontally. It has a shallow lip, so you can use an automatic watering system. The best part of solid benches is that they will hold onto heat in the winter. Solid benches are great for transplanting and potting plants, but they aren’t ideal for keeping the plants as there is poor air circulation.
Best Staging Height
A great bench will be around 30 inches tall and 33 inches wide. The biggest selling point is that you won’t have to stoop to ground level constantly. Ideally, you want something that has at least two shelves. If you’re struggling for space, you can use your benches as temporary workstations, too.
What About Shelves?
Shelving is basically a mini-version of staging. You’ll install shelves in your greenhouse to hold small pots or seed trays, and you can attach hangers to them for smaller hanging plants.
The Best Bench and Shelving Materials
- Wood: Treated lumber is going to be your best option since it will be resistant to moisture and can last for years before it decays. The drawback to wood is that it can still be prone to insects, and it can be a cause of root rot in your plants. It can also promote algae growth, which will become a home for fungi and plant pathogens.
- Wire: This is a great option because you can easily disinfect the material to stop fungi and plant pathogens. But welded wire can sag easily under the weight of your plants, and it can also rust, which means you have to repaint the material regularly.
- Aluminum: It’s lightweight, durable, and gives you good drainage and air circulation. However, aluminum alone isn’t ideal for heavy pots.
- Galvanized steel: This is a great material because it resists rot and decay, it’s long lasting, and it can hold your heavy pots. The downside is that this material is quite expensive, so there’s a larger up-front cost.
- Plastic: These will never rust or rot, and plastics last as long as other metal options. The problem with plastic is that it’s hard to disinfect, so you could run into issues in the middle of your growing season.
What Is a Bench System?
If you want to use benches for your plants, a bench system is simply how you are going to arrange them for optimal growing conditions, as mentioned below:
- Peninsular: This will allow for plenty of space for growing plants, and you can group different plants easily with this layout. There will also be a plenty of space for you to get around.
- Longitudinal: Your benches will run along the length of the greenhouse and are great if you are also growing ornamental plants like flowers. Your routine tasks, like watering and pruning, are easier with this layout.
- Rolling benches: They will ensure that your growing space increases, and you can move your benches around to create aisles where you need them.
RAISED BEDS
Raised beds are great because you can grow plants on surfaces of any size, and it really doesn’t take much to set up, so you can start growing right away.
Having raised beds has its advantages. You get better organization, which means you can keep track of what plants are growing where. You are going to eliminate more of your threats from pests because even a container on the floor of your greenhouse is going to be open for bugs.
Raised beds also give you the advantage of better soil drainage. They are also going to give you the same benefit that benches will since you don’t have to bend down to tend to your plants.
These beds do come with one major drawback. They are going to cost you more than other growing methods. Fortunately, once you’ve built raised beds, they are going to last you a very long time. Also, building your own raised beds is going to be far cheaper.
