Greenhouse

After I had realized that growing tomatoes outdoors in Sweden is not the best idea I decided to buy a greenhouse. I did it next spring. There are many kinds of greenhouses - from very advanced and big ones to very simple models. It might be tempting to have a big glass greenhouse which can be used also as a romantic room in the garden but not every one can or should have one. Not me. First of all I wanted something small that would not take too much space in the garden. I did not need tones of tomatoes because they were supposed to be eaten only by my family (mostly by me who is a tomatmonster). I just wanted something practical where I would be able to squeeze minimum 10-15 plants. I bought a simple model with a window in the roof. It is ca 2 m long and 1,5 m wide. The greenhouse is made of polycarbonate plastic which makes it childproof. A glass greenhouse would maybe look better but it could be easily broken by playing children. Plastic solves this potential problem. My polycarbonate greenhouse has also a UV protection layer. It blocks ultraviolet rays that can damage plants but let the "good" sunlight in. The window does not open automatically like in advanced models but it is not a problem to open it manually. Frankly speaking I keep it open almost the whole summer. I close it occasionally when it rains cats and dogs. Last year some of my tomatoes grew so tall that some of them "looked out" of that window.

The greenhouse arrived in a box. First, my husband (who is big and strong) made a foundation of concrete to make it stable and not able to fly in the wind. Then we put all parts together. When it was ready my husband made a path of concrete plates. It was very important because a natural path on the ground could easily become muddy. The concrete path stays dry and clean.

It is finally spring and my tomatoes have lots of sun. They started growing faster after planting them in little pots filled with soil. I will transplant them to big pots in the greenhouse in the middle of May. The picture below was taken last summer.

My concrete path and tomatoes in pots