Category: Greenhouses

Looking forward to seeing new and existing customers at this years Bloom Show which starts this Thursday and runs until bank holiday Monday.  Our stand is in the same place as the last two years, OR39.

Bloom is regarded as a great day out for all the family, and it looks as though we will be blessed with fine weather (God willing).

This year we will have a lovely Janssens Helios Orangery Greenhouse on show which can also be used as a Garden Room and will be an attractive feature in any Garden.  It is a big Greenhouse at 3.92m x 4,76m, it is 2m high at the sides.  The kit starts off in price at 6,770 euro.

Congratulations to our Happy Couple Marilyn O’Connor and Paulus Ungerechts who bought a Polytunnel from us this Spring and when the venue for their wedding reception ceased trading unexpectedly they improvised and used their Polydome Tunnel as the venue!

Here is a link to the story in the Irish Independent yesterday.  Irish Independent Story

Very appropriate too as Polydome was founded on Saint Valentines Day 1985!

For a successful crop of greenhouse tomatoes you need to get the planting right. The plants should be a healthy green colour and not yellow (due to lack of feed and/or water) nor purplish (due to chilling), nor lanky and spindly (due to lack of light). Plant them out when the first flowers are opening. From then on plants will need more food and more room for their roots to forage for it.

The greenhouse soil is the easiest and cheapest to plant into but you can’t keep planting tomatoes (or any other crop) in the same soil every year as pest, disease and mineral problems will build up. Change the soil for fresh soil from outside the greenhouse, or move the plants around a large greenhouse each year, or use grow-bags.

Traditional vine tomatoes grow straight up to head height or more and can be spaced only 45cm /18” apart. Bush tomatoes need less headroom but much more space between them. Keep any seed packets or labels for guidance.

You need canes or twines to support vine tomatoes. Canes are easier to use but must be inserted before putting in the plants to avoid damaging their roots. Strings are simpler at first, but as you twine them around the growing plants they may need to be slackened at the top so use a shoelace knot and leave extra twine on the end.

Water the plants well before putting them in, and again after planting. Make sure the soil around the root ball is wet so the roots can grow into it: greenhouse borders can become very dry. Leave the plants slightly below the surrounding soil so water poured onto the bases of the plants won’t roll away from them.

When seeds have been sown and germinated in a seed tray, the process of separating the tiny plants and transplanting them into individual pots or containers is pricking out. It’s an essential skill for greenhouse users who raise plants from seed. Do it as soon as the seed-leaves on the new plants are opened out fully: delaying longer allows their roots to intertwine so that separating the plants damages them more severely. Fill compost loosely into the containers to be planted up. Level it but don’t firm it down. Using an old teaspoon, a metal tag or similar, dig under a seedling from the side as you lift it by one of its seed-leaves. Lower the roots down into a hole punched in the centre of the potting mixture in the target container and tap the container to level the compost around it. Firm it gently with your fingertips and water it. Set it somewhere warm, sheltered and out of direct sun until the plant recovers from the shock of transplanting and starts growing again.

Avoid sowing seed too thickly in seed-trays, as the seedlings end up too close together for easy pricking out   Do as little damage to roots as you can while pricking out so the plants will recover and grow faster. Always hold seedlings by one seed-leaf and never by their stems: stems are much easier to crush than leaves and a plant with one damaged leaf still has another.

If a seed-tray is too congested because of sowing thickly or delayed pricking out, all is not lost. You can still cut the solid block of root-bound compost into squares, pot up each square and reduce the plants in each to one by snipping out the rest.

Horticulturalist Peter Whyte gives some advice on protecting Greenhouses.

Sheltering a greenhouse from strong winds reduces damage, but if not done properly it can do more harm than good. A solid barrier such as a wall stops the wind dead in its tracks, but the air pressure that builds up in front of that wall turns the wind up and over the top and around the ends or corners. The diverted wind adds to the wind already passing by, increasing the wind speed there. And because the wind pressure increases as the square of the wind speed, it greatly increases its force and the damage it causes. To make matters worse the airstream passing over or around a solid barrier creates a vacuum behind it that causes violent turbulence, which further increases damage.

The trick is to create a permeable barrier, with holes to let some of the high-pressure air from in front pass through it and fill the vacuum behind. This eliminates the turbulence and continues straight on but at a lower speed, pushing up the high-speed airstream coming over the top of the barrier. The average wind speed is reduced by half for a distance of ten times the barrier’s height downwind, but also for twice its height upwind because some of the airstream is diverted upwards before it reaches the barrier (so you can place a barrier close behind a greenhouse to avoid blocking the sun).

The ideal windbreak is about 50-60% solid and 40-50% holes. A hedge like that would be transparent enough to let you see cattle through it but dense enough to prevent you counting them. Artificial barriers can be made with walls of concrete screen blocks or solid concrete blocks spaced apart, or purpose-made plastic screening such as Parafence^TM fixed to posts.

We have made a decision to discontinue selling Eden Greenhouses with immediate effect.

A competitor has been selling them at cost (as Greenhouses are not their main business) which in the short term is good news for some customers who avail of the cheap prices but we are unwilling in this case to do so.

Due to EU pricing law the manufacturers are unable to stop this practice which is intentionally pushing others out of the market.

In the end the consumer looses out as for example we have 5 of their models on display (and were the only company in Ireland that I am aware of with this number) but of course they will no longer be.

Customers in the country around our area will no longer have someone who can build them – in fact the competitor does not employ any constructors while we have three permanent staff engaged in this.

No doubt with us and others out of the way the competitor will up their prices again (as otherwise why would they sell at cost?) and so the consumer will in the end be worse off.

We have some stock of Eden Greenhouses (and Halls and Europa Manor which were from the same source) and also our display models to sell off – so if you want an ex display model now is a good time.

Customers in Cork, the Twohigs have kindly sent this lovely photo of their beautiful Janssens Victorian SL Greenhouse. What a beautiful job. Greenhouse isn’t the right word though is it as it isn’t plants but relationships that will blossom in this one. Cheers.