Greenhouse Staging
For most gardeners their greenhouse is their pride and joy. But in the excitement of choosing and buying your greenhouse don't neglect an important aspect of any glasshouse which is the staging.
For the vast majority of owners their greenhouse has to be a multi-purpose area. While you may like to have it completely devoted to growing tomatoes the constraints of garden size and cost means that at various times of the year your greenhouse will need to do other things apart from just grow plants.
During winters you'll find you need to store frost tender plants inside along with all the various plant pots and seed trays along with other things that won't fit in the shed.
In spring you'll be wanting to sow seeds, and grow things on until the temperatures are steady enough and the plants big enough to go outside. And that takes up an enormous amount of space.
Only once you start moving things out can you start to think about growing your tomatoes, peppers, etc, on to maturity inside the greenhouse.
So when you buy your greenhouse don't just look at it as an indoor growing space. It's so much more than that. And to maximise the way your use it you're going to have invest in some greenhouse staging.
Here are some things to consider about greenhouse staging. Firstly where are you going to put it? The best location is on the side of your greenhouse that gets the least light. This will allow you to start growing plants in the border on the other side with the maximum amount of light available.
Another reason to locate the staging on the least sunny side is because if you are going to fit greenhouse blinds at some stage these will need to go on sunniest side. If you have the staging on brightest side you'll find that staging will impede the movement of the blinds.
You also need to consider whether your staging is temporary or permanent. If your greenhouse is large you will probably want to have permanent staging in place simply because it is so useful. However if you've got a small greenhouse then you probably don't want your greenhouse staging to eat into your precious space all through the growing season.
For this reason you can buy staging that will fold down flat against the greenhouse wall when it's not needed. Just remember that they are not as robust as the more permanent types but should be more than adequate for growing things on early in the season.
For the more permanent greenhouse staging you basically have a choice of aluminium or wood, slatted or solid top, double or single tiers.
Aluminium is the most popular choice because it's relatively cheap, not too heavy to move about if necessary and can be flexible in design. Wood, especially cedar, is expensive but looks lovely. It's also heavy to move so once you picked a place for it to go you're probably not going to want to move it again.
Some people liked slatted tops, others hate them. Others like having a shelf underneath, others prefer not to bother. It's all down to personal taste. Just think about how you're going to use your greenhouse staging throughout the year and that'll help you make the best choice.