A Hobby Greenhouse Will Get You Growing!
For people who would like to do more gardening but live in a
short growing
season area, a hobby greenhouse is the answer. A hobby
greenhouse is not
large enough to produce vegetables or flowers on a
commercial basis. It
will, however, give you a place for a tomato plant or
two and some fresh
greens even if you live in the northern regions.
Greenhouse enthusiasts
even have their own association, called the Hobby
Greenhouse Association,
which publishes a quarterly magazine. The organization
also sponsers
events and helps individuals connect to get help with the
aspect of
gardening that they are interested in, whether it's growing
cacti or saving seeds.
If you are in the market for a hobby greenhouse, there
are several
types on the market. The smallest type is not large
enough to walk
into and must be accessed from the outside.
It resembles an
old-fashioned phone booth made all of glass
and outfitted with shelves.
This type is designed to fit as many plants as
possible in as small a
place as possible. The shelves are made of glass
to allow as much light
as possible to reach plants on the lower shelves.
Another inexpensive
version of this sort of hobby greenhouse is shelving
covered with a
zippered tent of clear plastic. This sort of arrangement
is great for the
small-scale hobby gardener wanting a place to keep her
flowers or houseplant starts.
There are a variety of designs of hobby greenhouse
that are large enough to walk
into but made entirely of clear glass or plastic. They are
often about the
same size as a small storage building. Some independent builders
have started
making these to sell locally. Among national brands, one of
the nicest is called
the "Solar Prism." It is called this because of it's unique
construction.
This hobby greenhouse is made of a single piece of durable
clear plastic which
is designed to work like tiny prisms side by side. They
trap the rays of the
sun and shoot them back into the greenhouse at all angles.
For this reason,
these little greenhouses are said to glow when the
weather is cloudy.
Better hobby greenhouses are equipped with automatic
sensors that open vents
which allow ventilation and keep the interior temperatures
from getting too high.
These are a great labor saver, but can get expensive. Another
benefit sometimes
found in nicer greenhouses is a built in irrigation or misting
system.
Members of the Hobby Greenhouse Association, or HGA, have
invented many interesting
designs of greenhouses.
If gardening is your hobby, greenhouse growing will
interest you. With a greenhouse,
you can have the earliest tomatoes and salad greens all
year. You can also start
seedlings for the main garden early in the spring when
outdoor temperatures would
kill them. A hobby greenhouse can be a good investment.
