These get slated regularly on garden forums, but I'm terribly fond of mine as I wouldn't be able to plonk a proper metal/glass greenhouse in our rented garden. It needs to be looked at as more of a disposable greenhouse, though - don't expect it to survive longer than a year. I opted for a 3' x 6' walk-in one: it has oodles of shelving, plus space up the back wall to grow a decent amount of cucumbers.
Pros:
- The shelving is brilliant.
- It's really cheap, and easy enough to assemble.
- It's meant that I've been able to grow a decent crop of tomatoes and cucumbers this year, plus plenty of summer ornamentals from seed.
- Daytime temperatures are reliably 5/10 degrees warmer than outside.
Cons:
- It needs tying to something fixed. Really really. The guy-ropes aren't good enough, and weighting it down with pots won't work. Trust me: you really don't want to be found weeping into a pile of broken greenhouse and dead plants.
- The plastic will disintegrate, so you'll find new air-vents occasionally.
- The zip will inevitably break after a few months.
- It doesn't keep frosts out, even with the door zipped up. Also, temperatures can soar to over 40 degrees in summer.
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Do they do mini ones for balconies I wonder? It would be ideal.
ReplyDeleteFound you through Blotanical. I hope you enjoy it there and we'll see you around a lot.
Hi Melanie, thanks for the helpful review. I'm tempted by this greenhouse, to try and keep blight off the tomatoes next year but where did you find one for £20? All the walk-in plastic ones I have seen are £40-£50. I'll second Sue's welcome to blotanicals, it's a great place to meet gardeners from all over the world.
ReplyDeleteHi Sue they do these plastic greenhouses in all sizes, even pop up ones to fit over a grow bag. There's bound to be one that would fit yur balcony.
It was from B&M Home Bargains - they've taken over a lot of the old Woolworths shops. I'll edit the post in a minute.. :)
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