Growing Plants in a Greenhouse
The needs of the individual plants don’t change because you bring them indoors. Whatever they require outdoors in the way of temperature, light levels, fertility and watering doesn’t change when you move them indoors.
So if you want to grow high-light greedy plants such as tomatoes or roses, you’re going to have to add supplemental lighting or they’ll slow down in production. This means in the winter months across most of North America, low light plants are greenhouse plants or grow lights are used.
If you want to grow plants that require dormancy - then putting them in a greenhouse and forcing them to grow through the winter months will only shorten their lives.
Heating requirements are expensive now and unless you treat this hobby greenhouse as exactly that - a hobby - understand that the tomato you force in December is going to be one of the most expensive fruits you’ve ever eaten. :-) (Combine the low light levels with high heating costs and you have a recipe for expensive plants)
Conditions in a greenhouse that are designed for plants to grow are also perfect for diseases to thrive (fungus loves high humidity) so you have to maintain and watch your plants carefully.
Sounding Negative
The above might sound a bit negative but those are the hard facts about trying to keep a greenhouse running during the winter (particularly in the north).
But You Can
You can however create a greenhouse used as a season extender. A place to protect those tomatoes from frost so they’ll ripen each and every fruit.
You can have a place where some leafy greens such as spinach, kale, cabbages etc (ones that take very cold weather) can be grown right up to heavy freezeup - or through a mild-winter.
You can have a place where starting perennial seeds and taking early spring cuttings is easily done and controlled.
You can have a warm refuge on sunny winter days for daytime coffee breaks and getting a dose of Vitamin D. (Seriously, I used to love the greenhouse in January and there would be many days I’d be working out there in wearing t-shirts.
The actual skills
What You Need to Succeed
The actual skills of growing plants in a greenhouse are covered throughout my web pages but in general, once you understand container gardening, you understand how to keep a plant growing.
And given you can grow any plant in a container - greenhouse gardening is a great way to extend and enjoy your gardening season in the backyard landscape.
a redwood hobby greenhouse
Click here if you have a question about growing plants in a greenhouse
