Greenhouse Gardening Tips

Posts by:

Donna Balzer

Donna Balzer is a garden expert, a regular guest on CBC radio and host is internationally aired "Bugs & Blooms" on HGTV. For more great tips from Donna, visit www.donnabalzer.com. You can also read Donna’s gardening books: No Guff Vegetable Gardening with Steven Biggs and keep track of your success with her Gardener’s Gratitude Journal: Part Diary, Part Personal Growing Guide.

Assortment of cauliflower seed packets

Experience the Joy of Greenhouse Gardening: Tips for March and April

Sunshine on Your Face in the Greenhouse Garden

I close my eyes as I bask in the sun, heat on my face. I take off my jacket and then my hat. My neighbors, friends and family have gone away to Martinique, Belize and Spain but I am experiencing the best holiday. I am sitting in the sun at home – in my Greenhouse Garden.

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tomatoes growing in a greenhouse

Greenhouse Tomato Tips for Beating the Heat: July in the Greenhouse

The Trouble with Greenhouse Tomatoes

Do your greenhouse tomatoes have heat stroke?

If your tomato blooms are bending and falling off, flower and all, they are having a heatstroke. When extreme heat hits, greenhouse tomatoes fail to set fruit even as the leaves keep growing and new blooms appear.

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Leaf showing signs of distress

Greenhouse Garden Tips: How to Solve Your Pest Problems with Biological Controls

Like something out of a horror film, the army of purchased insects sense the trouble-makers and bite their head off as they emerge…. And just like that, my greenhouse problem is solved.

In the Beginning

Speckled leaves on my strawberries make me think of spider mites, but I am wrong. When I tap a leaf with tell-tale speckled leaves, I catch three white immature thrips on a piece of paper.

Thrips move slowly, crawling or sometimes hopping but never really flying. They fall easily on the piece of paper I hold below the leaf. Whiteflies are a brighter white and they fly quickly as soon as a leaf is touched. I do not have whiteflies.

My immature thrips are the size of a 12-point Helvetica lower case “e” on the recycled paper I use to catch them and they are a serious bother on my strawberry plants.

 

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Growing starts in my April greenhouse

How Worm Castings, Pests, and Algae Affect Your Greenhouse Garden

Pests, Worm Castings and Algae

What are Worm Castings?

Before we get to greenhouse gardening algae, let's talk about a shopper on Amazon that complained about bugs in her worm castings. If you don’t speak garden lingo yet, worm castings are simply worm poop. They are mixed with soil in garden beds or in pots to make tomatoes grow faster, stronger and healthier. And just in case you missed the memo, worm poop comes with bugs of its own. The good ones.

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Greenhouse green vegetables

Greenhouse Growing: 5-Step Plan for Sensible & Successful Gardening

Greenhouse Growing is Planning for the Future

I am eating a lot of Kale and Bok Choi from my cool Greenhouse Garden right now.  The winter-sown spinach is suddenly starting to explode as the days get longer too. There are still a few beets and carrots in the greenhouse and the season of overlapping crops is about to begin.  This is a normal life with a greenhouse growing.

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Tomato

Timeline for Growing the Best Greenhouse Tomato: Tips for Success

So Many Tomatoes, So Little Space

Greenhouse tomato growers are rightfully confused when they see so many kinds of greenhouse tomatoes for sale. Karen Olivier, an independent tomato breeder from the Secret Seed Cartel, estimates there are 20,000 kinds of tomatoes listed right now and she is adding to that number by breeding new tomatoes every year.

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Different Variety of tomatoes

Greenhouse Garden Tips: Soil Amendments & Nutrients

Importance of Soil Amendments & Nutrients in Greenhouse Gardening

A few years back my greenhouse tomato leaves were purple, yellow and spotted. Not all at once, but over time and on different leaves. It was the second year I was growing in my greenhouse and the commercial potting soil I bought was low on phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium. The leaves on the plants were telling me what was going on. And it didn’t look good.

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Spinach

Hobby Greenhouse Growing: Tips for Ordering Seeds and Supplies

Before You Order Seeds for Your Hobby Greenhouse, Read the Fine Print

Why I started growing in my Greenhouse Garden a few of my favourite plants stopped working for me. That's what I learned to read the catalog fine print and adapt my shopping for a better hobby greenhouse growing. 

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