Greenhouse Gardening with Mels Mix

I just got a small greenhouse and would like some information about any good greenhouse gardening books.

Has anyone used the Mels Mix in a greenhouse?

Any advise on greenhouse gardening?

I have used it for all my seeds , potting and potting on as well as for sack grown potatoes , all brassicas peppers & tomatoes in the glasshouse .

Very occasionaly I have had to give the seed tray a liquid feed and I put that down to there only being a bit of compost in the small amount of MM in some of the smaller tray sowings.

I made my liquid feed by putting a 2 pint jug full of my own made up MM into 4 pints of water and stirred it every day for 4 days then strained the infusion off & used it in a minature watering can carefuly onto the mm round the seedlings not on them just incase the sun came out and burnt them through the droplets of liquid onn the leaves.

Watering is by micro fan spray jets on a timer of 1 minute at 05 .00 and 19.00 from over head ( these can be turned on or off )onto the seedlings and seed trays . Dripper nozzles that are on long unbellical tubes from the main timed water run , these go direct into bigger plant pots .

When things have been set up like this on a time clock for auto watering everything grows like crazy as ther is no check in growth .

The plants are phenominally strong and healthy .

The smaller sized seeds I've sown in pots and seed trays have beeen covered in a very thin layer of fine grade hroticultural vermiculite . This covering wicks up moisture out the MM and over the seeds it keeps the seeds ideally damp for germination .

The beans and peas marrows and courgettes were all soaked for 24 hrs and then started in the glashouse in pots . they only took a fraction of the time that it would take if they wer sown outside even if 24 hr soaked.

The sweet peas were also done in the above manner and were up in just a few days.

21 day germinations have typically been coming through in 6 days and are often plantable in three weeks or less.

I just use my greenhouse as a warm place to grow warm season veggies. I have a couple 1x5 boxes and various pots, all filled with MM. I'm growing the majority of my tomatoes and peppers in there, along with a couple squashes and cukes. Proper ventilation is critical when the sun is shining. I do get bees inside, and they pollinated the squashes and cukes. I manually pollinate the tomatoes.

This spring, I tried a hoop house inside the greenhouse. Overnight temps stayed 8-10° warmer inside the hoop house.

Thanks for the hoop house comment Boffer , that is something I can try with a small kiddies pop up tent perhaps .

Perfect!

I got the idea on the forum too; probably from someone talking about Elliot Coleman's techniques.

It used to be that our houses were built with covered front porches where folks could sit in the evening until the oppressive heat in the house dissipated 'long about midnight or so. They would hang a two seater bench chair, often made from wooden slats, from chains attached to the rafters to make a porch swing.

The front porches are seldom constructed anymore in this age of air conditioning and small lots, but the porch swing nostalgia is alive and well. I picked up a used free standing porch swing that had rotten slats that needed replaced. I discarded the swing, and was left with a 2 inch metal tubing frame that the swing hung from. The end view is that of an isosceles triangle with a rounded top, about 4 feet high. It's about 5 feet long. Perfect for draping some plastic over.

You can just see one end of it in the rear of this picture, with the plastic still on it.

Thanks for the explanation and the picture..

We have similar porch constructions called conservatory's and we use them almost all year round due to the more intemperate wet weather and lower temperatures .

Though now adays due to extortionate cost of them & cheaper building of smaller homes most are " lean-to " constructions with polycarb multi walled roofing sheets .

Where I use to live I grew most of my seedlings in the conservatoory for we were post and had an all glass tinted , one way sunlight roof .