A greenhouse in the shade?

[margaritasbythesea]

DH and I want a smakl green house for starting off vegetable crops and later maybe housing tomatoes. We only have a small vegetable garden of three raised beds and four troughs but it's too much for the windowsills inside.

Our problem is that our garden is on three levels cut into a hillside and the only really flat (concreted) place is the bottom level and this is often in the shade.

Is there any point having a greenhouse in the shade or will it be an expensive flop. We can't have a plastic one as we live in a very windy area. Neither do we really have room fir cold frames, except in the same spot.

We've bever had a big enough garden for this to come up. What do more experienced gardeners think?

You'd be OK for starting vegetable crops. Tomatoes might not be too enthusiastic. You'll also be fine for extending the season for salad crops, both starting them early and keeping them growing later in the autumn, so I think you will get good use from it.

What is giving the shade? Is it the slope of the hillside or is it overhanging trees? Most of the light in the greenhouse is coming through the roof, so if the roof will be unshaded for a good part of the day you should be OK. (You won't need to apply shade paint in the summer )

My greenhouse is OK for tomatoes but is shaded as follows: N wall by bushes, E wall by garage, S wall partly shaded by wisteria, W wall partly shaded by 6ft hedge a couple of metres away, roof shaded part of the day by 50+ foot trees in next door garden but one. And we're in Yorkshire so we don't get that much sun anyway.

Thanks for your reply. It sounds promising. It will be shadowed by our house, so pretty severe but other flowers like a fushia and some poppies and monbretia seem quite happy growing in the same shade.

It will be an expensive mistake to make but you have given me some hope.

I wouldn’t. You will get so much more from one in the sunshine. I think you’ll regret it. It will keep the wind and rain off seedlings but you won’t be able to use it for crops in the summer. I have one in the sun and one semi shaded, and the difference is massive.

We have one cut into the hillside in our very slopey garden. You don’t need to put it on a patio, I find things grow better in soil anyway. A small brick foundation or an outline of slabs laid over a sand/cement mix will do. We terraced with sleepers, it took a few days but was a good way to spend lockdown.

That's interesting. Thank you. I'm going to go over it again with dh tomorrow. The only other flat bit is where we'd usually sit. This makes me wonder if greenhouses are always really a bit unsightly or not.

You can get really pretty ones, often wooden, but they aren’t cheap. You can screen them on the north side though, with a climber.

I was surprised how easy it was to flatten a patch of our garden. You only need to dig out 3 feet into the slope horizontally , and move the soil to the downward slope.

No. Things do grow but not as well as if it were in a sunny spot. I tried tomatoes last year in my shaded greenhouse and they didn't really get off the ground. The ones in a plastic frame next to the south house wall were rampant. I would consider flattening a tiered bit.

How many hours of sun will the area get in summer? I think it will definitely be a mistake to put a greenhouse somewhere with full shade and probably a mistake with partial shade tbh. The type of plants you grow in a greenhouse are exactly the type of plants that need full sun. You can easily start off most seedlings outside in spring and summer without the protection of a greenhouse. What are you thinking of growing other than tomatoes?

Ok. Thanks for your replies. I'll go out today and try again to find a bit to flatten. I think you are all probably right.