Grow Your Own Magazine

Morning all,

I’m soon joining the greenhouse brigade – an 8 x 8 greenhouse - and also my first. Foundation was finished just yesterday, and the house will arrive in a few weeks time. Yeah.

It's main purpose is really winter and starting things off, but the normal summer greenhouse veg will be growing in there rather than outside next year - tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers. I'm sure melons will end up in there too.

I've already a few grapes in pots outside currently and one thing that I'm considering is growing one of the vines outside the greenhouse and growing it thru suspended from the ceiling.

Will this be enough to act as shading during the summer months - or will it need shading itself as well?

Or is it uncomfortable companion to the normal greenhouse veg (requires diff conditions?) and will end up shading the summer vegetables too much?

The greenhouse is square, with the ridge running (roughly) E to W (door here) and the vine could be planted on any of the walls N, E, S. South, while sunniest, is also the direction of the prevailing wind (given the vine will be trained in thru a hole)

Any advise / experiences on combining the ceiling grown grapes and summer vegetables in the same greenhouse?

Many thanks in advance!
Douglas

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Douglas

http://www.myvegetablegarden.co.uk/ - under construction

I have a grapevine in my greenhouse. It doesn't leaf up until your early sowings are ready to start hardening off and it casts a bit of dappled shade which the othere toms and peppers seem to thrive under!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Thanks Snadger - I'm opting to root some of the grape prunings this year and will take it from there. I think I'll keep the orginals in pots, being trained as they are.

Do you find the grapes sufficient to shade the greenhouse without additional shading?

Or do you find yourself using shade netting as well (below grapes laterals or outside greenhouse i guess...)

Cheers,
Douglas

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Douglas

http://www.myvegetablegarden.co.uk/ - under construction

Hi At the nursery where I used to work they had grapes growing in greenhouses with no shading and they did really well. With our unpredictable summers it still makes sense to shade the greenhouse when the temperature starts rising (mine was 30 degrees C today and that's in autumn!) Maybe you could use shading that can be removed on dull days like you suggested-perhaps a roller blind? The main problem we found at the nursery was that the plants must be kept well watered during the summer with very good ventilation. If the roots got dry and air in the greenhouse was humid, the grapes got mildew and went rotten.
Happy growing !