[tode]

Hi, I put up a lean-to greenhouse last winter, facing due South. At the moment, the floor is just a 5 inch layer of gravel over poor, hard soil (old courtyard).
Grew toms this year in 6 gallon "pots", which have done OK, but I've had a really hard job keeping the temperature down, and keeping the house relatively humid: watering the gravel helps for an hour, then its very hot and dry again.

What would you recommend as flooring in order to maintain a reasonable humidity: concrete, gravel, brick or other?

(I don't want to spend a fortune on a humidifying system).

Thanks for any advice / opinions.

[tode]

Apologies for "bumping up", but I want to get the floor done before moving all the stuff in for the winter.
Any ideas ?

[gillie]

My greenhouse has gravel beds over sheet plastic to retain water.  I grow tomatoes etc. in ring culture rings, or when I run out large pots with big holes in the bottom so that the roots can strike through into the gravel.

During hot spells I have to water twice a day - but shading the sunny side of the house makes a huge difference.  Are you shading your house?

Cheers,

Gillie

[meterman]

i just leave buckets of water in the GH use them to water with then refil this helps also to prevent thermal shock

[tode]

I thought of laying down a concrete floor, with a little "rim" round the edge, so that I could more-or-less "flood" the GH.   Is that OTT ?
Have buckets of water, and a pile of bricks that I soak. But it has been bl**y hot this year !

For shading, all I could find in a hurry was a couple of fencing panels 
Will have to work out a better solution for next year.   ? ?

[gillie]

I remembered something that you might find interesting:

The building I used to work in was undergoing a major refit.  An 'old boy' with a greenhouse managed to scrounge the automatic flushing mechanism from the Gents' urinals.  He planned to set it up in his greenhouse so that the tomatoes got regularly 'flushed'.

I would be inclined to create concrete 'trays' and fill them with gravel so that the plants root into them and you don't have to paddle when you are picking. 

I use standard green shade netting, pushed up onto the roof by a cunning contrivance of long canes.  The orchid house has a double thickness of netting.

Cheers,

Gillie

[tode]

Good idea Gillie: next time we take the Motorway, I'll take a couple of spanners with me .... 

How do you keep your netting on the roof ?  Tied on or weighted down ?
We get quite a bit of wind here.

[savbo]

i weighted windbreak netting by tacking it to 1m lengths of batten, and put it in place with one batten lifted over the ridge and the other hanging down at gutter height or lower


M

[sunshineband]

I'm sure our temps have been nowhere near yours Tode, but this is what we did:
Grew tomatoes in gallon pots with the bottoms cut out so they could root into the soil of growbags they stood on, and put waterproof plastic trays under the growbags. These were filled with water and it lasted two to three days.

We did it like this as it was sort of like ring culture and it did work a treat. As the green house is at school (work for me  as I am a tad over 18  ) it meant I could leave it untended over the weekend without everything dying to a crisp.

Also put up fleece as shading becsuase that was all we had, and on the inside as other wise it would have blown away. Only one window to open so left the door open for three months 
 Tomatoes were fabulous.

Hope the idea of the ring culture is useful

[gillie]

"How do you keep your netting on the roof ?  Tied on or weighted down ?"

Weighted down.  There are pieces of string at strategic spots which are tied to bricks (or in your case maybe concrete blocks.

I realise that France is less advanced than the UK when it comes to garden centres, but I bet they do a good line in urinal engineering

Cheers,

Gillie

[tode]

Gillie:  "I realise that France is less advanced than the UK when it comes to garden centres, but I bet they do a good line in urinal engineering"

Yes they're called trees     

[tode]

The trouble I had in Spring was the alternation of cold grey days with sunny hot days.

How did you manage with shading ?

[sunshineband]

Left it in place once we had had a couple of hot days as I reckoned it was better shady than scorching. Closed the vent and door during the night early in the year around May, but open all the time until mid September.

The shading didn't cut down light too much.

[strangerachael]

I drape old white sheets over my greenhouse in the summer - the fitted ones have elasticated corners which helps them stay in position and I also secure them with clothes pegs. When the weather is cooler you can just  peg them to one side like curtains. It's not particularly attractive to look at but it's very simple and effective. Easy to wash and re-use too.

[pushrod]

for simple shading you could try whitewashing 70% of the glass.