▷ Greenhouse before winter: how to prepare it for a good harvest next year

Prepare the sleigh in the summer and the greenhouse in the fall. We have paraphrased a famous saying that demonstrates the importance of preparation. When you have already harvested the last tomatoes, the greenhouse must be prepared for next year’s rich harvest before winter. Shall we get started?

REMOVE VEGETABLE REMAINS

Start with the plants that were growing in your greenhouse. Remove all fallen stems and leaves. If you have had disease or pest problems in your greenhouse, do not put leftovers in the compost to avoid spreading the infection to other plants in the spring. Such plant remains are the best burn. Before burning, check the burning conditions of your neighborhood or settlement, far from anywhere you can freely light a fire wherever you want. For safety and emission reasons, there may be restrictions on when and how such waste can be incinerated.

If you have mulched the greenhouse, it is a good idea to remove the mulch as well.

In other words, the greenhouse must be cleaned before winter.

WHY IT IS NECESSARY TO IMPROVE THE SOIL IN THE GREENHOUSE

When there are no more plants and mulch left in the greenhouse, it’s time to think about the soil. If you are wondering why it is not necessary to change the soil in the garden, but it is necessary to do it (or at least integrate it) in the greenhouse, here is the answer.

In the greenhouse, year after year, the same crops are usually grown: cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, etc. The list is short, crop rotation is usually not applied, that is, the same vegetables are grown continuously in the same place. They use the same nutrients, they are attacked by the same parasites, the same diseases. So that the soil is not so depleted, we alternate vegetables grown in the field, but it is difficult to do this in a greenhouse. Therefore it is necessary to improve the soil or even replace it completely.

You may think that this is not necessary, because you can improve the soil by adding complex mineral fertilizers in the spring, but this is not enough. Fertilizers provide plants not only with the main elements nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, but also other important trace elements. However, when feeding plants only with such fertilizers, in the soil substances of organic origin begin to decrease. Therefore plant extracts, compost, manure, siderates, mulch can help maintain the balance.

SIDERATES ARE USEFUL FOR IMPROVING THE SOIL

After the harvest it is possible to improve the soil by sowing siderate crops, also called green manures. They are cultivated to then be buried and therefore fertilize the soil, improve its structure and increase organic substance.

Sow white mustard, narrow-leaved lupins, vetches, broad beans or other siderates (available at any garden store or online) in the greenhouse. If you plant in a covered greenhouse, leave it alone.

Siderates, like mustard, are buried until flowering. However, if you sow in September or October, you probably won’t even have time to flower. Then you will no longer have to do anything: after the winter, the mustard will freeze and cover the ground by itself.

If the greenhouse is covered, be sure to put snow inside in winter.

ADD COMPOST TO THE SOIL

If you do not plant siderates, it is worth supplementing the greenhouse soil by adding compost – preferably one you’ve grown in your garden. It is natural and its origin is so local that it couldn’t be more local. Thus, all elements and microorganisms collected in the compost will make the best and most environmentally friendly fertilizer for the worn soil of the greenhouse.

If you do this work already in the autumn, the soil will settle, and in the spring you can safely sow the first vegetables in the prepared soil.

HOW TO CORRECTLY CHANGE THE SOIL IN THE GREENHOUSE

It is worth completely changing the soil in the greenhouse:

if you haven’t done it for a few years,
if the plants are affected by diseases;
if there were many pest attacks this year.

Dig at least 10 cm deep and extract it: it is the autumn exercise in the open air. Create a separate compost pile and layer the excavated soil along with grass clippings or other organic waste. Leave this pile alone for at least a year or two to settle. Now the weather is too cool for reactions in the compost to happen quickly, and there are probably a lot of infections in that land, so it’s not worth rushing with this compost pile. And after a couple of years, you can safely use the soil from this compost pile in the garden.

And now bring the garden soil, the good compost, the rotted manure into the greenhouse, mix everything and spread it, water it well. Humidity is a very important component, do not save water and snow in winter.

CLEAN THE GREENHOUSE STRUCTURES

Well, another important job is to leave the greenhouse tidy. If the greenhouse is covered with film, remove it, fold it and store it in a dry place. If you do not remove the greenhouse cover, clean the structures and cover: film, polycarbonate or glass.

Pests like to hide around tracks, joints, and other hard-to-reach places, but that’s why cleanliness is so important. The Brimstone Smoke Box is an effective tool, its smoldering smoke reaching all nooks and crannies, but it is a very powerful weapon and should only be used in a very heated battle. The same goes for copper sulfate or chlorlime solution, both can be used on the surface of the soil, but both kill not only pathogens, but also many beneficial things.