I have a greenhouse at the lottie which is directly on the soil.
I am getting another one which I will be putting on a bed of slabs as I think this will be easier to maintain.
I am debating whether to slab the one I already have at the same time but I'm not sure as I would imagine that the toms and cukes prefer going directly into the soil.
What do you have/recommend?
My greenhouse on the lottie has open beds in it.....perfect for growing toms and cukes...also chilles and sweet peppers. I suppose most people would slab it if they want to use it just for propagation etc and not direct growing. Hope this helps:)
it depends on you.
Personnally i wouldnt have mine as open soil. Partly because theres a lot of slugs that would use the soil, i can control the amount of pests a bit easier with using pots etc.
Also problem with soil is thta weeds will grow very quickly. they grow fast enough in the open soi, so my greenhosue would be over ran in no time.
Also problem of sterilising soil, in pots you can use the soil from the lottie and empty and change the soil in the pots each year, its a little harder to do this with the border soil in a greenhouse.
Well I inherited a GH with beds and grew toms in it last year but this year I intend to use growbags for my GH toms. Sort of for rotation. I'm not too knowledgeable about this bit I reckon you shouldn't grow the same crop constantly and I really just want it for toms.
thats true graw. The pests slowly build up. Leaving it fallow and using growbags will probably work. if not its a case of sterilizing or replacing all the border soil.
I always put greenhouses on a course of bricks followed with a path down the centre. The two sides I leave as soil. I din't usually plant direct into those borders unless it's something like marigolds.
For tom's and peppers etc, I sink large pots into the soil and plant into them in 'growbag' compost. At the end of the season the pot contents end up at the plot.
This method gets rid of the medium from the grrenhouse without having to replace all the soil, and because you have put the pots in the soil up to the rim, you actually gain about a foot of growing height.
I grew direct into soil last year and will be doing so again. You've no growbags to buy and i like to put manure and comfrey leaves into the soil. Its no problem weeding because its not such a big area. The year after i will slab and use pots because of the soil developing pests plus its easier watering pots i reckon.
We have two greenhouses one at home with a paved floor and one at the lottie with soil, and they both have plusses and minuses. More or less as Adam and Grawrc have pointed out. At the home one I usually have grow bags and plant pots for some of the tomatoes and cucumbers, and I usually bring on my seeds and seedlings and harden off plants there. It is high maintenance as far as watering and feeding is concerned, but as has been said not many slugs or snails find their way in, and it is easy to sterilise for next year.
The lottie one we deliberately left as soil, so we could manure it and fertilise it more and the big plus for us is that the soil retains a lot more moisture. If we don't manage to get up every day to water then it is not so crucial, as the plants find moisture from deep down. It is true that you do get some weeds and so more slugs etc., but we do try to keep on top of that. We have had the lottie greenhouse for a couple of years and it is our intention to replace the soil this year, but we don't see that as a problem. busy_lizzie
If you are replacing the soil how deep ought you to dig/replace?
Remove soil down to at least a spade's depth, if you can.
Back fill with plenty of compost/manure plus soil.
If worried about soil borne nasties consider watering the area with something like Jeyes fluid to sterilize it.
HTH
Jerry
I thought Jeyes fluid was on the forbidden list now?
News to me but you could be right. (Pity, it's good stuff.) If so, ask for garden disinfectant.
dont think so about the jeyes fluid.
I saw it in the supermarkets and saw it in fairly large quanities on a few gardening websites.
I think technically you are not meant to use it on the soil but you can wash pots and paths with it.
http://www.rhs.org.uk/learning/publications/pubs/garden0503/pesticides2.asp
But say you were to wash you pots in the same location as the soil you want to clean, who would know?
But the down side is you will also kill the good bugs in the soil, so personally I have never bothered to use it on the soil and rely on replacing the soil with fresh.
Jerry
a point i didnt read is that with slabs inside they will heat up during the day and expel the heat during the night !!!
Which I suppose would lessen fluctuations in temperature.
My greenhouse is slabs on one side with staging for progating/ overwintering pots etc... and the other side is open bed. Seemed a good solution. I built it over where we grew spuds last year, so soil wil be well turned over etc...
Is our first year, so will let you know how it goes.
Which side faces which direction daisymay? Am greenhouse newbie and still planning the inside bits.
My greenhouse is east /west with two beds (north and south) and slabs down the middle. South bed does massively better then north needless to say. Don't see myself turning it round though ???