By: Charlene Rennick
With some people, the need to garden is an obsession. Whether you are growing herbs, flowers or vegetables, that motivation to see the fruits of your labours is a constant craving to cultivate.
If you live in a northern climate or have a short outdoor growing cycle, your green thumb may yearn for some of that gardening action during the dormant season. Recruiting some form of a hobby greenhouse may be the answer to your winter gardening restrictions.
Hobby greenhouses come in almost any shape, size and for most locations. You can customize any greenhouse design to fit whatever kind of space you have in your dwelling for your potted plants. With all the different materials, designs and accessories, not having enough space for a greenhouse just isn’t probable.
There are ways to turn a balcony into a greenhouse, a window planter into a year-round herb garden or a rooftop into a private produce section. If you are fortunate enough to have a house on the ground, there are lean-to style greenhouses for outdoor sheds, decks and garages that use the wall of your home for support. You can get a small free-standing growing shelf that will fit on your balcony or porch or you can go for a fully glassed-in structure that will soon overtake your
Not sure how long you are going to live in that cramped apartment? You can buy a greenhouse that is the same size as a small bookshelf; the frame snaps together without tools and has a polycarbonate cover. Can’t tell one end of a hammer from the other? They sell free-standing models already framed with adjustable shelves; this is all covered with UV-treated plastic. Only renting? They make portable greenhouses that you can disassemble with ease and relocate to your new sunnier studio flat. Need two more months in your growing season? You can set up a portable cold frame made of light-weight, waterproof, UV- resistant material that stores in a bag you can carry. It contains zippered and screened windows for ventilation and two portholes for water and power access. It comes with stakes that are used to anchor into the ground.
For every growing set-back, there is a greenhouse solution. All it takes to find it is a little digging and a green thumb.