Greenhouse Gardening – tips for success

Water your greenhouse plants with room temperature water, so not to injure your plants. Tap water should stand for a day to rid it of chlorine which is the major cause of brown tips on greenhouse and indoor plants.

Clay pots should be soaked in water a few minutes before filling with compost to stop them stealing the moisture from the potting medium and giving your seeds or plants an instant drought.

Indoor trellises can be made out of coat hangers. Bend to any shape you desire – hearts and starts are good - and insert into the soil If you have taken cuttings of jasmine (summer or winter) train the young plants around this trellis shape and decorate with tinsel to make a superb and dirt cheap Christmas gift. Kiddies love this if you make their birthday year number for them.

Herbs are nature's insecticides and serve a good purpose in the greenhouse, use marigolds as companion plants and put a few garlic bulbs in pots between your rarer plants – garlic annoys aphids!

To add acid to your potting compost, mix in dried coffee grounds.

Place chicken wire over a wooden box with the bottom removed to make a rough sieve, but set it chicken wire upwards and rinse the vegetables with your garden hose. The dirt and bugs will stay outdoors and your kitchen will remain clean.

Store small pots for seeds in a pair of old tights hung on a nail, it stops them tipping over and makes more shelf space for plants.

Greenhouse gardening marigold photograph by matsukawa 1971, used under a creative commons attribution licence