Mini greenhouse colour

[robfosters]

Just want to check, do the different colours affect light. I am interested in this one:



I need lots of light in there for chillies. Does the green colour affect light input? It just seems quite dark in there. Any help appreciated.

Rob

[mothhawk]

Gosh, I remember doing an experiment about this mumble mumble years ago in school biology lessons. We enclosed the school experimenter's favourite, the runner bean, in different coloured cellophanes (all we had in the dark ages!) and monitored their growth.

Green plants reflect green light and absorb all the other colours of the spectrum, so green light is least useful. IIRC the beans in blue light grew best. I think blue light is short wave energy and promotes leaf growth, and at the other end of the rainbow, red light is long wave energy and promotes flowering.

ETA So if your blowaway is green, I guess it's reflecting green light and letting all the other colours through.

[robfosters]

Thanks for your help, but can't really work out the answer to my question from your response. Will chillies grow to their best in that greenhouse?

[veggiechicken]

I have no idea what light levels chillies need. However, a glazed GH can become too hot in summer and you need to add shading - with netting, painting or blinds etc. Once that is done, you've cut the light levels too!

[mothhawk]

Well, it seems dark because you're not getting the full spectrum (green is missing) which is needed to produce white light. I don't think the makers of the blowaway would sell many if the light wasn't good enough to grow stuff in. That said, I don't grow chillies, and only grow sweet peppers on the indowsill.

No doubt a chilli aficionado will be along presently with the info you need

[RedThorn]

Only problem my chillis suffered from in one of them was getting too hot if I forgot to open the door back in the day when we had sunshine in summer as for growing in them my chillis grew in them( assuming it's well anchored )

[BrianNN5]

I found that the light was fine with mine - in Summer, but at other times it seemed to block too much light.

Unfortunately the door zips gave up the ghost quite quickly and I ended up binning the cover and passing the framework onto a neighbour to make cloches with.

[Tripmeup]

I grew chillies in them before with no problems.. As others say, make sure you anchor it very well and also, some models are flimsy in terms of the quality...