With all the worries today about the purity of food, not to mention the current escalating price of food, it’s time we took another look at the art of hobby greenhouses. If you look at information on the Victorian lifestyle, you will find that many people had a home greenhouse.

There was a time, not to far back, that everything natural was the way of life. Families had to think differently than we do today because their very life depended on it. Not only did they grow food for themselves in gardens and greenhouses but also was in tune to the plants and animals that were native to the area that surrounded them.

Back then, many wealthy families built greenhouses within the walls of their homes to feed not only their families, but the families of their staff as well. Truth is, you don’t need a lot of space to grow your own food. Raised bed greenhouses do well on decks and porches and cold frames do quite well on small flowerbeds. If you want to grow a little more, there are a lot of small to medium home greenhouses available on the market today at good prices.

A neighbor of mine grows an abundant of flowers and vegetables in a very small greenhouse. She does heat it during the winter and provides her family and friends fresh flowers and produce year round. Since she is retired, she has a lot of time to dabble and try different growing techniques with her backyard greenhouse.

Adding a hobby greenhouse to your backyard will allow you to grow your own food virtually year-round. If you have never gardened with a greenhouse it will take a bit of reading and self-education to get started. The main thing is to prepare the home greenhouse environment for optimum plant growth; provide good soil, correct temperature, etc. You can also choose to go organic and avoid pesticides to avoid any allergic reactions.

To get you started out of the gate, consider planting pots with a theme. Like a salsa garden that would consist of tomatoes, cilantro, onions and peppers or a salad garden of lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers and radishes. All of these plants will easily grow in pots and you can experiment with additional plants as your time in your home greenhouse and knowledge base grows.

After you have tasted the produce that you have grown yourself, you will not only comment on how much better it tastes, but be proud that you are helping to save the planet by not consuming produce that has been picked way to early, sprayed with who knows what, crated, stored and shipped many miles away. Having a backyard greenhouse is a great way of going green and staying green. It just makes since to save the environment, eat better and healthier and do it no matter what season you’re in.

Tags: gardening, Greenhouses

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Greenhouses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.