Greenhouse beginner!

[Somethingintheheavens]

My darling in-laws have bought me a greenhouse - this is a lovely gesture, they fear I am bored and need a hobby🤦🏼‍♀️

It is being installed on Monday.

I have never mentioned wanting a greenhouse, nor do I have any grand designs on growing my own food - I watch clarksons farm and that’s about as close as I get.

I believe it’s 8 x 6 - they are avid gardeners and have also supplied pots and seed trays and copious amounts of random things I’ve never seen before s well as staging?!!

Frankly they are much more excited than me and have chattered on about broad beans and tomato’s. I don’t eat tomatoes and broad beans give me a stomach ache 😂😂

now the only thing I have ever managed to grow is a peace lily (because it throws itself to the floor when it needs watering) and a aloe Vera plant which could be dead but isn’t brown so I continue to water it.

Any suggestions? I do very much like flowers and admit I have indulged in little fantasy of sitting in the garden with my fork and cooking (I’m a terrible cook so this is indeed a fantasy) up some amazing meal that I grew myself.

i have had a really shocking few years with bereavements and had to move to a new house which had a concrete floor in the garden ‘for a greenhouse’ which they have leapt on, in an attempt to help.

if I’m honest I debated putting armchair in it and turning it into a reading nook 😂

Yes to the armchair.

I would focus on what you do like to get you started. Herbs, cucumbers, salad, strawberries?

they are all fairly easy to grow.

tomatoes are good but you don’t like them.

chillies my kids love to grow but never eat!

Sounds lovely though, made me smile.

I keep cacti in our greenhouse. I’ve made four cactus gardens and they all fit on one shelf. I bring them indoors during the winter. They flower their socks off. There are also some lampranthus / delospermum which stay in the greenhouse all year.

Oh see I feel like I might be a cactus person 😂

yes I like strawberries - herbs not so much. Never really understood the point of them (again truly horrific cook)

I find it lovely at the moment just to sit out in the greenhouse in the morning with a cup of tea. It’s usually a good 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature.

Id concentrate on growing lovely flowers if veg isn’t your thing.

grow flowers that’s what I do….no greenhouse though. But I grow flowers to cut and make nice arrangements for the house

The thing is.. I grow the flowers.. then what do I do with them? 🤨

do you just leave them there till they die? My mother in law (bless her heart and I adore her for not recognising just how little I am grown up enough for this said ‘you can make hanging baskets from them’

so now I need to figure that out as well? This doesn’t feel like a hobby it feels like a second job 😂

Herbs smell nice. Rub them between your fingers whilst you sit in the armchair reading a good book.

Grow an aspidistra. I’m not sure what an aspidistra is, but growing one sounds like a noble ambition.

I would honestly try and grow a cherry tomato plant. You may be surprised. I’ve hated tomato’s for 37 years until we grew our own with our children and now I eat them like sweets every year, home grown, warm, freshly picked cherry toms are a world away from the offerings you get in the supermarket.

We’ve also had success with baby cucumbers, jalapeños, kale, lambs lettuce, chard and radishes.

That’s very sweet of them.. but also very much new obligation for you! Maybe visit a garden centre and see if there is anything pretty/tasty that you’d actually like? You can buy the seeds, or little starter plants which may be more instantly rewarding to see grow. What’s your favourite veg or fruit? Are there any flowers from your childhood that bring a bit of joy?

I’m entirely new to gardening but have developed a new interest in what I could grow out there in our garden (moved in two years ago) thanks to garden centres. I was delighted to find a little mint plant last week as we had that in the garden when I was a child. I mean, I haven’t properly planted it out yet… I’m not a good gardener!!

Also, an armchair, cup of tea and a good book (maybe some nice lights) sounds lovely! Your greenhouse, your rules ☕️

Don't bother with hanging baskets they need daily watering in the summer and are a pain in the proverbial.

What do you like/buy from the fruit & veg aisle? Salad is a really good one. Focus on the expensive/difficult to get.

Pop the armchair in there, and let them grow you some bush cherry tomatoes and some basil. And sit in there to read or chill.

I'm very keen on gardening having spent a decade teaching it, and then moving to France to garden and although I love growing veg, it is hard work and if you aren't into it, let them do that bit and just enjoy the greenhouse for what it is.

You are SO my type of person 😂

I basically live on sandwiches 😂

I love cucumber and celery and ooh what’s those peas.. snap? oh and lettuce… and beetroot!

oh and I eat a fair bit of peppers?

Are they offering gardening/greenhouse lessons, along with all of this stuff, OP? 😂

I grow physalis/Chinese gooseberries every year. They let you know when they need watering, because their leaves look a little bit droopy. I eat them like sweets, but I do like sour things! I usually have tomatoes and strawberries on the go, too, and sometimes garlic and beetroot (they're not in the greenhouse, but they're easy to grow, and don't seem to get eaten by rabbits).

Chillies are supposed to be easy to grow, but they are also said to take over. If you're feeling ambitious, perhaps grapes? Then you could experiment with making your own wine and, erm, see if you live to tell the tale!

Edited to say that raised beds might be useful for more ambitious projects, if you get get into it (or they take over and leave you in peace).

Sadly they live at the other side of the country so we only see them every couple of months.. my husband (their son) passed away a few years back and they are constantly on a mission to show me they still love me - it’s utterly adorable and they are the best type of people in the world - even if they do constantly overestimate my talents!

I have about 30,000 cook books (they do at least look pretty on my bookcase) and last month they sent me a ninja soup maker because ‘you can cook this’ - i made leek and potato soup and it was utterly vile. It’s blatantly not idiot proof.

I do however appreciate the monthly food parcel of home cooked meals I get to prevent me from ‘starving’ 😂

i would suggest starting small and easy. Plant some sunflower seeds in small pots (will then need moving to bigger pots later) or straight into some larger pots. With some watering they will then grow into some cheerful flowers for the garden.
busy lizzies also grow easily from seed and you can pop them in some pots to look pretty on a patio.
buy some small strawberry plants and again they will hopefully grow some strawberries you can eat, the stick them back in the greenhouse over winter for next year.
a blueberry plant can start off small and in a few years will give you lots of blueberries, and won’t need to be in the greenhouse when it’s a bit bigger.
what about growing some mint? Good for a mojito or a Pimm’s if cooking isn’t your thing?

Get yourself a comfy chair, a small book shelf and a spider plant. In no time at all you will have ten thousand spider plants. Then you can say the greenhouse is full of plants creating oxygen for the good of the world and have to do very little work on it while getting to claim you are gardening while reading books.

Grow flowers then when big enough transplant them to the garden.

how about melons? They grow well in a greenhouse.

@Somethingintheheavens a greenhouse is perfect for peppers and cucumbers. I would grow a small amount of something you enjoy to eat.
As for flowers, do you ever buy bunches from the supermarket? So you can do the same, but grow the flowers you like and cut them to have in the house. Or, you could grow flowers for the bees, and once the weather warms up plant them out into your garden.

It’s currently being installed. My mother in law has sent me one of those Ryan air cabin bags filled with seeds as well as 3 different cakes 😂

oh and a book on ‘propagating ’ which sounds alarming 😂

Your in laws sound like they are lovely people. I’m sure the loss of your husband and their son must have been devastating for you all.
Whatever you do with your green house I hope you get a lot of pleasure from it.

There’s a few good groups on FB for greenhouse growing.
You've mentioned 5 items you could grow, I have a polyeco tunnel and it is half veg half flowers, the flowers go out into the garden when they’re ready, it can be time consuming but nothing beats sitting there in the sun admiring your work.