Your greenhouse is set-up and ready to start growing, so what should you grow? The number of choices that you have may seem underwhelming, but with the right planning, you can find the produce that will work best for you.
Firstly, what does your family eat? What are the vegetables and fruits you always find yourself leaning back on at meal or snack time? Do you find yourself reaching for potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini? Or are you a berry-family, with strawberries, blueberries, and melon always at hand? Write down what you think will get the most use in your household, and find what overlaps when it comes to care, temperature, and other conditions.
- Tomatoes - These popular fruit-vegetable hybrids are useful in a wide array of meals from all around the world. A staple in so many households, while canned tomatoes can work, any gardener can tell you they don’t hold up when placed next to fresh, juicy, garden-grown tomatoes. Sauces, sides, soup bases, curries; the options are limitless. Greenhouse grown tomatoes are some of the best, and at their very peak of flavor when ripened on the vine.
- Firstly, choose a variety that works best for you. Tomatoes are split into two or three types, depending on their seasonality. Determinate varieties produce one large harvest before dying off as the season ends. These usually grow in as bushes and are less sprawling than vining indeterminate tomatoes. Indeterminate tomatoes keep producing fruit throughout the season until the frost comes. Heirloom tomatoes, on the other hand, are generations old seeds nurtured for their particular taste, texture, shape, color, and presentation.
- How do you know which variety to pick? Choose based on what will work best for you. Vining indeterminate tomatoes will need extra trellises in order to keep growing outward and producing more fruit. They’ll also need more labor in order to keep the plant pruned and focused on producing fruit, rather than new vines. Determinants on the other hand, take less work for more tomatoes -- although they only have one major harvest before they die. They’re easier to contain, as their bushy nature isn’t as laborious as controlling vine growth. Heirloom tomatoes will require pollination if they aren’t out in the open, accessible by bees and butterflies.
- Next, decide where you’ll be growing your tomatoes. Some varieties prefer growing up entirely in a greenhouse, while others do better directly in the ground. Do you have the capacity to protect your tomatoes from pests and diseases entirely, or will you need a hardier alternative?
- Then, choose by your favorite kind of tomato to use. What flavor are you looking for? Do you like the milder tasting yellow or orange tomato, or are you a fan of large, red, beefsteak tomatoes? Choose a tomato that will be used often, and happily, in your kitchen.
- Squash - Like most crops that grow on the vine, squash prefers warmer temperatures than others. Squash do best when exposed to full, direct sun, fertile soil, and plenty of moisture. Compost is especially beneficial when growing squash, full of organic material and exposed to lots of sunlight. You can start squash up to a full month before their planting date, transplanting them after there is no risk of frost or freezing. Pick them frequently to encourage more growth! These are great options for salads, stir-fries, and can be stored in cans or frozen for long periods.
- Squash is generally divided into two categories, either summer or winter. Summer squash grows in about 60 days and are harvested while they’re still young. These are very productive plants and can continue to be picked throughout the summer. Zucchinis are a great example. Winter squash on the other hand grows a bit slower, taking up to 110 days to mature. These mature fully on the vine, and have thick, hardy skins, making them ideal for storage. This includes butternuts, pumpkins, and other heavy gourds.
- So, what’s best for you? Taste is the biggest factor here, as well as how and where you plan to plant your squash. Some softer squashes can be eaten right away, while others take much longer to mature. Squash can also grow to be very large, so consider your space when choosing what you intend to grow.
- Despite their name, both summer and winter squash prefer warm weather, enjoying a soil range of around 60 degrees before planting. Allowing seedling squash to gain their strength inside a heated greenhouse before planting them once the frost has ended.
- Squash like one inch of water every week. Mature plants will need to be watered once a week, making sure that moisture penetrates at least a foot underneath the surface. Extra heat, or sandy soil, will require more water. Drip irrigation works particularly well for squash.
- Potatoes - Make sure you choose a variety that works best for you! They range between dryer and more moist options, or how much starch they hold within. Russet potatoes being more mealy or dry, as they’re full of starch. Fingerling potatoes on the other hand, are moist, and waxier in texture. Some potatoes will be more your speed, depending on what you want to do with them. Dry potatoes work great for baking, frying, mashing, or sautéing. Moist potatoes may be more attuned for roasting, grilling, or in salads.
- Find a sunny place for your potatoes to grow, they should get direct sunlight for at least 6 hours a day. Use loose, fertile, well-drained soil so that you don’t get misshapen or squished potatoes. Keep the soil cool, between 45 and 55 degrees.
- Potatoes can be grown in the ground as soon as the soil is workable; usually about 2 weeks after the last frost. Let the soil dry out a bit or start your potatoes inside containers/a greenhouse before transplanting them in the ground.
- One of the best things about potatoes is that you can grow them directly from a potato itself. The eyes that form on old potatoes are flowering buds that can form a brand-new potato plant. A few days before you intend to plant your potatoes, use a knife to cut large, budding potatoes into small, egg-sized pieces, each with 1 to 2 eyes. Give the pieces a few days to grow a protective layer over the cut edge.
- Potatoes need between 1 and 2 inches of water each week. Too much water after planting, or not enough, as the tubers form can misshape your potatoes. Once foliage becomes yellow and starts to fall off the plant, you can stop watering them.
- Potatoes taste best when they are kept deep and dark in the soil. Continue to bury the plant with newly mounded soil and compost so that only the top leaves stick out of the ground. If spuds are exposed to sunlight, they can turn green and produce solanine, a toxic chemical.
