Green House Farming

Green house farming has existed since some time back now. Sighting an example of the Romans who grew vegetables in glasses as a way of conserving the environment and also ensuring consumption of vegetables in large amounts. With green houses, the temperatures and humidity can always be increased or decreased manually. With the improvements in technology and ability to produce better glass, the practice of green house farming has kept going on and on until today. It is very sustainable and land use effective to grow the freshest vegetables in green houses. With green houses, you will use less water and apply little or no herbicides. It is generally user friendly yet gives the best results and produce.

Greenery structure

What do I need to Set up a green House Farm?

• Depending on the different climatic conditions across the globe, it is requirement number one that you have all the knowledge and information you need about green house farming even before venturing into how much you need to input or even get out of any green house activity of any kind.
• Green house technology. This has been developed to grow crops in areas with adverse climatic conditions that may not favour crop growth. In that case, mechanisms and techniques have been put in place to provide a conducive environment for the perfect growth of crops therefore. With minimum labour, any crops can be grown in a glass raised house all year round and hence manually increased or decreased.
• An enclosed and mounted structure made of transparent and translucent material that is large enough according to ones’s desire to accommodate crops in controlled conditions and environment in order to maximize the growth potential of crops as well as their productivity.

My green house

What are the challenges and opportunities that come with putting up a Greenery?

Why practice Green house farming? Opportunities

• With the kind of crop, the type of green house as well as the control facilities of the environment you are always assured of 10 -12 times much more and higher yield compared to the cultivation from outdoor.
• You can always produce transplants in a continuous nature that are free of diseases and of quality genetical nature.
• With green house cultivation, you are always sure of regular increases in crops.
• For quick vegetable and flower crops production, green houses are more appropriate.
• You are able to produce fruits and vegetables even during the off seasons.
• There are no heavy water needs yet it is quite easy to control the crops at the same time.
• For control of diseases, chemicals and pesticides are efficiently used since one works within well known farming area.

Challenges that may come with putting up a Green House Farm

• As a result of insufficient or poor ventilation of the greenery, the crops may be attached by diseases ,fungi and mildew
• Limited space for growth of crops may also result into low yield and productivity
• Extreme and sudden temperature changes in the greenery

What is the cost and material requirements for setting up a green house?

For different kinds of crops, and environment, different shapes of green houses are chosen. The cost and needed requirements will therefore differ for the chosen green house.
The structure classification of the green house may be chosen depending on the following,
The shape, utility, way of construction, material for covering the green house. The materials and requirements therefore will also vary according to the desired type of green house.
For a type based on construction of the green house, you may note the following; it being wooden framed, pipe framed or a truss framed structure.
In addition, you may need the following materials for the construction of a green house structure.
A double layer polythene,evaporative cooling, heating system,CO2 generation and distribution, a system for humidification,lighting,drip and shading system, benches, porous flooring, nutrient application system and any other structural costs.
While estimating the cost of a green house structure, the estimation of the cost of the structure may highly depend on the kind of crop to be grown, the cladding material, as well as the control, system of the environment.

Managing green house growing

temperatures

How do you manage the growing temperatures within a greenhouse?

Green house temperatures are not constant, they may suddenly rise or fall and this may highly affect the crops within your greenery as temperature extremes are never the best for your crops and their productivity. For cases of the winter days even when the temperatures out are below freezing, proper ventilation is very vital. On the days with warm weather however, maximum ventilation is very necessary with all vents wide open and to exhaust fan on the full.
The best temperatures during the cold days at night should lie between 45 and 50 degree F except if one is growing tropical plants. In such cases for cool green houses, inmates may just become dormant without blossoming until the return of warmer weather for them to blossom again. Vegetables like geraniums, lettuce, cyclamens, herbs as well as a wide range of flowers are favored by the cooler temperatures.

Yellow flower greenery

Vegetables under green house

How is feeding and watering done in a green house?

It is not good to have a regular watering routine for crops in the greenery, but neither is it also good to let your crops go dry. The soil may lose its moisture and this may be affected by a number of things starting from the weather the kind of plant itself and the size of the container. As it is quite a challenging process, it is therefore necessary to often check on the pots. By touching, you are able to tell whether the surface of the soil is dry which will call for thorough watering. Keeping the greenery moist, will help your crops to grow bigger and better with more yields. The plants may require additional nutrients when you see signs of leaves yellowing, however this may also result from the roots over growing and filling all room which means need for more space for proper growth of the crop. If the plants were potted in good soils, you may not need to do supplemental feedings. The pot should not be leaking, and well filled with water, add enough amounts of manure after well mixing it for a number of days. Resist from such manure feeding especially in the mornings during the prolonged cold weather that is dull.