489 - Using a Greenhouse to its Full Potential with Leslie Halleck

0:00This podcast is supported by GoFundMe. My name is Veronica. We started our fundraiser for Mariah. She was a close friend in my heart, but she was also a family. She was my sister-in-law. She unfortunately passed from a car accident, so it wasn't something that we were prepared for. Shortly after we got the news, I was put in charge of helping with the funeral arrangements and everything. And just looking at the overall cost, it didn't feel right for me to ask the family that's grieving for money. That's what made me go to GoFundMe. And it just became a network of people that were willing to come together to help. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people. You really do miss out on the opportunity to help people if you don't ask. When you actually put your heart, your soul into it, and you're like, this is the reason I'm doing it, it helps a lot. Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com.

1:00If you have a greenhouse or you are considering having a greenhouse at some point in the future, today's episode is for you. So many of you guys have asked me questions about my experience with my own greenhouse. I've had it for almost six years now, and it has made a huge difference in the way that I garden. But I am still learning so much about how plants behave and how to best utilize the greenhouse in a way that helps me grow more food. But even after six years of using my greenhouse, I learned from today's interview that there is so much more that I don't know and that I have to learn. I want to introduce to you Leslie Hallack. She is a certified professional horticulturist, author, educator, and horticulture industry consultant with decades of experience in plant science, greenhouse production, and home gardening. Her newest book, Greenhouse Revival, Growing Year-Round, Follage Flowers in Food, is a practical guide to help

2:04gardeners at home make the most of greenhouse growing year-round. And one thing I loved about getting to know Leslie is she has extensive experience in lots of different places in the country. From Michigan to New York to DC to Texas to Oregon, she's got so much experience that can cover where most of us are in our home gardening journeys. And even if you don't have a greenhouse or you're not even sure if this is something you will add to your gardening, so much of what she shares will help inform you about how plants grow best, what light they actually need. Things about grow lights that I have never even known and I've been growing indoors under grow lights for over 13 years. I'm telling you you're going to love this conversation, you're going to learn so much, just like I did, so I can't wait to introduce you to Leslie Hallock, author of Home Greenhouse Revival. Hi Leslie, I just want to jump right in and talk about the season we're currently in,

3:06we're heading into fall and winter. And that's exactly when I got my first greenhouse was in October. What does a greenhouse offer for season extension or even overwintering that the outdoors does it even if you don't have a heater in the greenhouse? Yes, great question and thanks for having me on. It's exciting to talk to you about this and passionate about this topic. So I'm a maximalist and I think a lot of gardeners are the same, right? They have big dreams, they want to grow a lot of things and we don't want to do that a few months out of the year. We want to do it 12 months out of the year if we can figure out how to do that. And for most of us, that means some sort of protected growing area or a greenhouse. So season extension is one of the primary functions that a greenhouse offers you because it's going to obviously protect tender plants from colder temperatures depending on how you maintain the temperature of that greenhouse and we can get into that. But it allows you to jumpstart your seasons and extend your seasons.

4:10So heading into the fall and winter in particular, we're talking to mainly vegetable gardeners. I mean, some of us do some flowers, but for the most part, we're focused on vegetables as much as possible. I didn't actually have a heater in my greenhouse until a couple of years later. But what I noticed is that even unheated the greenhouse helped for season extension. So can you explain why that is? And partly because what I noticed is that unheated the first part of the morning, I would check the temperature in the greenhouse is the same as it is outside. Like there's no difference first thing in the morning. That came as a surprise to me partly that it didn't actually hold heat all night long. And then also, but it still actually helped. Can you explain why that was the case? Every greenhouse, depending on its materials that you've built it with and it's glazing, glazing means the covering on your greenhouse. Polyplastic glass, whatever you've covered it with, each one of those materials is better

5:13or not as good at holding ambient heat in the greenhouse. There's always leakage, right? So unless you're heating the greenhouse, you're always going to have some error escaping and trading. And when the night temperatures come down and you're not heating that greenhouse, you will tend to lose a lot of that ambient heat that you collected during the day, unless you're using heater or heat sinks, things that will absorb that heat during the day and then radiated at night like big water barrels will soak up heat during the day and release it at night. If you are not doing anything then yes, greenhouses are not completely airtight and they're going to lose heat. It can still help though because the daytime temperature is likely going to get warmer in there than the outside temperature. And what's really important to plant is actually the 24 hour average temperature or day night average temperature. That's actually the most important temperature gauge for growing crops as you want to know what is their 24 hour average.

6:15So it's the day night temperatures combined. Now obviously in the winter when temperatures get below freezing, then you're going to have that danger inside your greenhouse as well. And so even if it was doing fine in October, you get to December, that nighttime temperature is going to be so cold that you're losing protection in that greenhouse unless you're heating it. So yeah, so heat will build up through the radiation that comes in from the sun during the day, but you're going to lose it at night. So unless you're heating or insulating, adding additional insulation in the winter, you might not be as warm as you think you'll be overnight or in that morning. But for a time period, the extra heat you'll get during the day will create an average temperature that still moves those plants along faster than they would outside. That makes a lot of sense. And it makes me question also going into winter that when I'm planting lettuce and other crops outside, obviously the growth is slowing because of day length.

7:17But I noticed in the greenhouse, they're still slow, but they're not as slow. And I thought that's strange. I'm like, because the light is the same. So are you saying that it's that average temperature that's helping those continue to grow inside the greenhouse, whereas they wouldn't outside? Correct. You're getting warmer inside that greenhouse because that greenhouse, the light coming through it, that radiation is going to warm up that enclosed space. So you're actually going to get warmer inside that greenhouse. When the sun is hitting it, it's hitting your plants outside, but it's hitting that greenhouse and building up. So you're getting a warmer temperature during the day inside than you would outside, so that day night average temperature or 24-hour average temperature is higher in your greenhouse than it is outside. So that would help you extend crops or keep them harvestable faster in the greenhouse, even if you have them growing outside. Right? Same thing with ripening. You know, how tomatoes in the fall. Once that day night average temperature drops below about 70 or so,

8:17you'll have green fruit, but it'll just sit there green and it will take a really long time. But if those plants were in the greenhouse under the same conditions, it's going to be warmer in that greenhouse during the day. The day night average, 24-hour average temperature is going to be warmer. That fruit's going to ripen. So that's one strategy you can use if you want to extend your tomato season, is if you're growing in containers or can dig them up and pop them, move them in the greenhouse, and then you'll actually get ripening that you would not get outside. Wow, I did not know that. I'm learning so much. And I've done this for six years, which shows you that there's still so much to learn. So before we move on from the cold nights, once I started putting a heater in my greenhouse. So at that point, that's just great bringing the bottom temperature up to where it's preventing damage. But the overall warmth you're saying is what's promoting that the more accelerated growth then comparable outside. So a way to think about it is light is the primary driver for growth, right, vegetative growth.

9:19It also can influence development, but temperature really drives development. So shifting to a flowering phase along with day length, the speed of ripening. So temperature really influences speed. You know, a photo period or light is going to trigger a specific response in a plant, but it might happen much more slowly at a cooler temperature or a very hot temperature. Same thing with day length, right? Things are going to move slower or faster depending on your photo period or the length of light that you're getting by the season. So yet things will slow down. Your day lengths are shortening if you're not using supplemental light in the greenhouse. So plants are getting less overall light. And when you see me use the acronym DLI in the book, which you'll learn about, that's what I'm talking about the overall amount of light combined with temperature. So yes, when you heat it overnight, then obviously your night temperature is warmer in that greenhouse. Add that together with the temperature you're getting during the day. And that average temperature is going to be much warmer.

10:19Once you start heating that, that's going to allow those plants to keep developing as they would if they were experiencing those temperatures outside. So you mentioned if you don't have grow lights in your in your greenhouse. Yes. I know you speak about this in your book, but at what point do you feel like grow lights are beneficial in the greenhouse to help augment those short days? Very. And I think one of the biggest misconceptions for people when they're just dreaming about getting a greenhouse or maybe have a greenhouse but are struggling is that, oh, it's transparent. It's getting all the light it needs. I don't need grow lights. Well, that's actually not true. And in fact, if you look at big commercial greenhouses that are producing, you know, your, your petunias and your, you know, let us, they all have grow lights. They all have supplemental lighting because they're looking to get plants to grow and harvest and to market as quickly as possible. So they need to speed things up. And when you start going into fall, your day lengths, your photo periods, significantly shortens.

11:20Not only that, the angle of the sun changes. And you lose, you can lose about 50% of your ambient light, depending on your latitude and the season. So it gets much darker overall, the, the total amount of light available and then the photo period shortens. And what a lot of folks don't realize is that many plants are photopiriotic when it comes to a flowering response. So if you're trying to get flowers and fruit on something that happens to have a photo period requirement and you don't realize that and you can't figure out why it's not flowering, it's likely because it doesn't have enough hours of light. So grow lights can be helpful to manage your day lengths when it gets darker and shorter days in the winter and also to provide additional light that these overcast cloudy, low sun angle conditions can create. It can solve problems if depending on the orientation of your greenhouse, maybe it gets a lot of shade. And that's the only place you could put it. So you lose ambient light. Also, let's say you're starting veggie seedlings.

12:20Again, in the winter, day lengths are short, light is low. Just because it's in a greenhouse doesn't mean those seedlings are not going to etiolate, elongate and stretch and be weak. So they need light very close to them and the best way to do that is to use some supplemental grow lights in the greenhouse. So grow lighting has a lot of beneficial uses if you are trying to maintain a greenhouse through the winter or a big portion of the year. Okay, so that brings me to another question that I have because I get this a lot, a lot of gardeners that I talk with and the questions they they pose to me, they assume that a greenhouse is going to help them with indoor seed starting, maybe even in lieu of a indoor space. And maybe you can correct my assumption, but I have found that the greenhouse is helpful to use strategically, but it doesn't replace my indoor space. And so what are some factors that a new greenhouse grower might need to understand about the possibilities and maybe even limitations to using a greenhouse with indoor seed starting?

13:24Because I feel like the automatic assumption is I can just start all my seeds in the greenhouse. And I have it, I've found that there's some seeds that that works for, but a lot of them it hasn't, unless you can educate me differently. That is wholly due to the environmental controls in the greenhouse. Can you keep it at the right temperature for successful seed germination and growth for whatever it is you're growing? And we've got cool season crops and warm season crops. So like your tomatoes seedlings may not be very happy, but your cilantro seedlings will be very happy in a cool little greenhouse. The lack of light is the biggest issue. And I think that's, temperature is very important, obviously. You know, spinach, for example, can germinate down at 20 degrees Fahrenheit. It takes it a really long time, but it will still germinate. Tomato seed, you're going to kill it at that temperature. So temperature is a big deal, but it's grow lights. You need, when you're starting seedlings, you really need grow lights within three to four or five inches of those seeds. A greenhouse that's getting winter ambient light that's diluted, that's

14:26diffused is not going to provide it often times enough intensive light for seedlings. Unless it gets a lot of direct winter sun, depending on how you have angled your greenhouse. So I think that's where people trip up. So not having heating and cooling capacity in the greenhouse and not having grow lights is why most people, if struggle with seedlings, if you have those supplemental environmental controls, then you can start seedlings all day long very happily in the right kind of greenhouse. But if you say you have a poly hoop house that doesn't have a lot of environmental controls, yes, you're going to struggle with seed starting and maybe your indoor grow room or space is better because you've got grow lights, you know, you can maintain better temperature. So it's really all about the ability to control the environment in the greenhouse. If you can control it, then you can do all of that. But I will, and we can go off from here, I think one of the biggest mistakes people make with greenhouse is across the board is they start with the structure of the greenhouse and what kind of greenhouse they want and the look of the greenhouse

15:29and this idea they have instead of taking a plant-centric approach first. First, you must decide, what do I want to grow? And what are the conditions that those plants need? And then you need to reverse engineer your greenhouse choices based on what you want to grow and your climate. Can you keep this specific type of greenhouse warm enough in the winter or whenever? Can you cool it enough when it gets warm to grow warm season vegetable transplants or cool season vegetable transplants or maintain your tropical orchids or grow herbs to sell at the farmer's market or whatever it is that you're doing. If you build or buy this great greenhouse and spend all this money and then realize, oh, this setup can't actually grow successfully what I want. It's hugely disappointing and it's why a lot of people give up. So you have to think about what you want to grow first, learn about the conditions those plants and crops need, then choose how to set up your greenhouse.

16:34So a lot of people ask me, mine is I don't know if you're familiar with the brand is a Yoder-built greenhouse and so it's got a, okay, so it's got a bottom where it's not on top of the ground. It has a wild foundation. Yes. And then everything's pretty much on shelves, but I do have some space where I can bring my green stock vertical planters and grow bags and stuff like that in there. But a lot of people ask me about do I grow like I guess in raised beds in there, which I don't because it's got a ground to it like it doesn't go on the ground like we talked about. You have a solid foundation to the green. Yes. Yes. So when you when you just said that someone wants to you want someone to consider how they want to grow. Yes. Like those to me are two different growing environments. If you have your whole bed in a protective greenhouse type area versus I feel like mine is more season extension and then getting plants ready to go outside. Can you differentiate between like if someone's trying to decide which way that they might want to go? You can do both in the same greenhouse

17:38if you have enough space, right? So I think one thing to consider another place where a lot of people trip up is they start out too small with their greenhouse and then they realize very quickly. Oh my gosh, I don't have room to do this in here. So you can zone your greenhouse. You can put in ground raised beds or you can grow containerized edibles year round if your climate and greenhouse allows it. You can also start vegetable transplants in that same greenhouse. I mean, it really just depends on the temperature of everything that you need. So you have to consider all of those plants together. But you can build raised beds. You can grow to harvest in containers. You can also use spaces to overwinter things. So I think it's just you have to think about all those things that you want to do. And sometimes what I recommend to somebody is, you know, maybe a big greenhouse doesn't work as well for you because you want to do different things that require different temperatures. Maybe you put up two or three smaller, you know, affordable little greenhouses. And then you can

18:40temperature zone. So maybe one of those greenhouses you have beds. And then another greenhouse maybe stays cooler and you're just using it to jumpstart things or overwinter. So zoning, I talk about zoning your greenhouse in the book and how you can find kind of natural warm spots and brighter spots and, you know, darker spots. So you sometimes have the ability to do all of those things at the same time in a greenhouse, depending on your space and your environment capacity to control the environment. So I think a lot of people confuse what I call high tunnel production with greenhouse growing and they're not the same thing. So if you are planting things in the ground, like row crops or cut flowers or whatever, and you put up, say a galvanized steel hoop house with plastic over it, just to cover that, keep it a little warmer, protect it from rain, but you're not controlling the environment. That's just high tunnel production. You're not really controlling anything. So I don't call that greenhouse growing, but you can certainly do that if you're growing in ground. But if you want

19:44to keep things in that greenhouse for longer and grow them on, then in ground beds can be a good way to do that inside the greenhouse combined with tables for your pots and your seed starting. So it really just depends on all the things you want to do. You've got to make sure you can control the environment for those plants and that you have enough space to do it. So you're not limited to doing one or the other. You can do both of those things if you have space and environmental controls. Yeah, that was one thing I was really grateful for. I remember hearing someone say, what if you're trying to decide between two sizes of greenhouse and you can afford it, go to the go bigger because I've never heard someone say they wish they were had a smaller space. Yeah, but I do want to because a lot of people just don't think about it. You might not have space for a much bigger greenhouse, but maybe you can work two smaller greenhouses into your space. And that works better with your budget or you start out with one smaller one with the plan of, okay, I'm going to put in another smaller one and that's going to be for these plants.

20:46And this one's going to be for, you know, starts. So you can get flexible and kind of creative, start smaller, but add later. Yeah, I hadn't bought about that. That would be a good idea. Yeah, so I want to ask you about a question or ask you about something that I have that I observed when I first started using my greenhouse and it shocked me that we're going to fast forward to the spring garden, okay, where that's where I use my greenhouse, you know, the most when it comes to getting plants ready. So I start my tomato seedlings indoors under grow lights because I'm starting them in February and I'm in Arkansas and it's too cold outside. But I found that as soon as I could get them out in the greenhouse and especially when I have a supplemental heater that helps, then I do because by that point, it's we're right probably right around the the equinox and the daylight's getting longer. And I remember one year I had two sets of Roma tomatoes and one year one set I put in the greenhouse and the other one stayed inside under grow lights. And I was shocked

21:48at how fast the one in the greenhouse grew, like incredibly fast as compared to inside. So can you explain the science behind why that continuously happens because I had to I had to delay when I start my seeds indoors now because it was that faster in the greenhouse, right? So a lot of that has to do with temperature, right? So it's possible that the temperature in your greenhouse, the day night average temperature is warmer than inside your house depending on how you know, I don't know where you start that, but you know, windows have drafts, walls can be cold, it depends on what side of the house you're starting it on and the winter indoor spaces can get quite cool. Tomatoes are tropical, subtropical plants and they everybody thinks they like it super hot, but they really like that medium bowl of porridge just kind of ball me right in the middle not too cold, not too hot. So I would suspect that your day night average temperature for one is slightly warmer in the greenhouse and that speeding things up. It is possible. I don't know the intensity power output of the

22:53grow lights you're using. They could be low powered output. I don't know we can talk about that and I don't know the duration you're running them, but it's possible that outside you're actually getting a higher DLI, meaning daily light integral, the total amount of light that that plant is getting while it's light out. So it's so it's possible that those plants are actually getting more light outside than maybe with the seedling grow lights that that you were using inside unless you're using high intensity grow lights inside that have a high output that would simulate full sun levels of light intensity outside. They could be getting more light in the greenhouse at that point. My suspicion was the light in the greenhouse, but I hadn't considered the temperature. I think maybe that that's a factor I hadn't considered before and humidity level. So your humidity level in the greenhouse is absolutely going to be higher. Okay, which means that transpiration water loss from those tomato plants is going to slow down. That plant is going to have more water in it more

23:55of the time. Indoor homes when you're running heaters, it's drying the air out. So you probably have a humidity level of like 30% in your house and winter. Maybe even lower depending on where you are. Sometimes it could be as low as 15 or 20. So that means those tomato plants are going to lose a lot more water to transpiration inside, but the greenhouse is going to be more humid, which is tomatoes like that more, right? They're subtropical. They like a little higher humidity. Or I will teach you this in the book, vapor pressure deficit, VPD. Basically, what's the lack of ambient of absolute water vapor in the air, right? Is there more water in the air or is there less water in the air? If there's less water in the air, your plants are going to transpire faster, they're going to lose more moisture. So having higher humidity, the humidity in your greenhouse is probably 60, 70, maybe even 80, and that's primo. That's going to make your plants way happier. They're going to lose less water.

24:58So that's it's those three things are going to go together. Your temperature, your light, and your your relative humidity or vapor pressure deficit. Those things are all going to be probably better out in the greenhouse at that point. Yeah. For reference, I'm using T5 fluorescent. So I know they're more old school in about 16 hours a day. And how many of them are you using? How many of those tubes? There's four. Okay. So that's going to be a pretty overall low, lower light delivery. So those are probably around 42, 40 watts ish per tube. I would suspect. Okay. So even four of those together is still close to seedlings. That's great. Once those tomato plants start to get bigger, they get way light hungrier. It's that you're not actually providing enough light intensity, PPFD, or overall DLI. So I would, that's a great setup for getting the young seedlings going

26:03in the book, in the tomato section. I actually give you specific light intensity and photo period durations for each stage. And I have a really detailed blog post about that on my blog. As that plant gets bigger, it needs a lot more light. So the light setup you have is fine for initially getting seedlings started into that, you know, six week range after that. You would need high intensity discharge, much more powerful growlates inside to get those tomato plants happy and fruiting. So I suspect there's a big difference in the total amount of light that your plants are getting out in the greenhouse versus inside at that stage. Yeah, that would track because once I started seeing that in tomatoes, I started doing that with pretty much everything, but cool season crops. Once they were established, I started putting them directly in the greenhouse even in early March before. Absolutely. That's perfect. Those are marches going to be in Arkansas, March, you're going to be kind of warming up and getting much more light out in the greenhouse at that point. Yeah,

27:05it's a huge, it was a huge difference. I was shocked. Of course, I thought, I thought it was all light. So you're, you're helping me understand warmth makes a difference too. Yeah, and definitely tracks with my observations. And I think understanding both light intensity and light quantity is where kind of most folks trip up. They don't, they don't realize that it's not about visual brightness. Plants don't see light. They don't have eyeballs. What we clock, what humanized clock as brighter light are like yellow and green waves links. The wavelengths that drive photosynthesis in most of the plant growth, even more intensely are red and blue light. That's going to be much, you know, you're not looking for what's bright. You have to measure output. Plants are harvesting photons of light like raindrops. So how many raindrops are falling on that leaf in, in for how long? What's the density of those raindrops? So a lower intensity light set up like you have is not delivering as many photons to that plant as you think it is. It looks bright to you.

28:07But plants don't see light. They quantify units. They absorb photons and there needs to be enough of those photons over enough of a length of time for that plant to get its target daily light integral, how much light it needs during the day. So I think so many people just say, well, this is bright. So that's enough light. But humanized cannot be trusted to gauge that because we see light. They harvest it. It's a totally different process. Yeah. That makes sense. So one quick follow up, we mentioned, and I know this intuitively, but I don't understand the science. So maybe you can explain this a little bit more. You mentioned going into the fall and winter, the angle of the sun changes. It's not just the duration of the day, but it's the angle. How does that affect what you just said as far as how much light I might get in February versus July? Oh, totally different. So double in the summer versus what you're getting in the winter and possibly even less in the winter if it's cloudy all the time. So when that

29:10sun angle changes, it's going to hit your greenhouse potentially at a different angle. So your greenhouse may not absorb as much radiation as well. There's obstructions. It's not as intense right. The earth tilts back away from the sun. So there's just not as many photons hitting us in the winter as there are when we're tilted closer to the sun in the summer. And so what that does is decrease significantly your DLI, your daily light integral, the total amount of light that that plants gets within a 24 hour period. And it also reduces the intensity, right? Different plants need different light intensities. Tomatoes can take a full sun intensity of light delivery. A fern does not. Each plant has its own requirements for how intense does that light need to be for how long? So in winter, we just lose. You lose a lot of those light photons just because of the angle of the planet to the sun changes. And you have cloudiness and the day length shortens. So all of that

30:14results in a significant reduction in how much light plants ambient light plants are getting in winter versus summer. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, a few more quick questions before you wrap up. A big challenge that new greenhouse growers experience is pests. Yes. And this is definitely the case in the early spring. So what can an organic gardener do to help prevent this? Sure. I think that is a surprise for a lot of folks. How pests can be such an issue in a greenhouse. You have to think about it. You're creating the perfect balmy humid conditions for your plants. But you're also doing the same thing for many insects, right? And pests. And so when they explode, they can explode inside a greenhouse. Whereas outside that you've got wind, you've got natural predators, you've got things they're going to take care of those pests for you. When you create an indoor incubation zone for these pests, they can just go wild. So always you want to scout and

31:16observe your plants. You need to inspect. So you need to constantly be checking for any signs or symptoms of pest issues. You need to check every plant you bring in your greenhouse and make sure you don't have hitchhikers coming in. So prevention by what we call that biosecurity is your best weapon. First, especially for organic gardeners, as much as you can prevent so that you don't have to treat as great. And then I would also encourage it. I go into a lot of detail on this in the book and I have a really big reference table that I put in there for a lot of things. But there's pests who can look at that predatory beneficial insects can very effectively be used as a part of a natural IPM integrated pest management strategy. So there are also a number of organic treatments that you can use. There are bio fungicides now that are beneficial bacteria. So there's a lot of organic treatments that you can use. Prevention is always going to be best if a plant is infected or infested. Get it out of the greenhouse. Get it out. That's a huge thing. Sometimes taking it outside solves the problem for you because predatory insects. So their prevention is always your best

32:23tool in the toolbox first. And then you need to familiarize yourself with which pests are particular problems for that species. Citrus, for example, you keep a citrus tree in a greenhouse over summer when temperatures get really hot. You are breeding scale. And it will not, it's incredibly hard to treat. So you have to know something about the plant itself and what pests are naturally attracted to it as well because that's going to be different for lettuce. Then it is for tomatoes, you know, different disease issues, different pest issues. And then familiarize yourself with what treatments work on what and what doesn't. And then consider employing beneficial predatory insects to help you manage certain pests. So whereas in the garden predatory insects can be iffy, we're not quite sure how beneficial they are in the greenhouse. They are beneficial. They can be much more effective because you have a contained space. You know, it's very easy to go by that big tub of, you know, ladybugs and put them out. And then the next day they're gone.

33:24They need a water source and a food source right there where you release them. And if there's not enough of that, they're going to leave and look for something else. So there's no guarantee. They can be very effective. And so I am a proponent of that, but you have to really, you have to pay attention to the needs of the predatory insect if you're going to release them outside inside. But it's the same thing. They need a food source and a water source in that greenhouse. So you need to familiarize yourself with what they need as well as what they're going to take care of for you. Yeah. Okay. So someone is considering a greenhouse just to wrap this up. Sure. There are, there are lots of options. And this is where I think it can get confusing. You've got the pop up little greenhouses that I first started. Sure. And then you've got like mid-range structures that you might find at a big box store. And then you've got a larger one like my yoder built. What are the most important things that someone should know before they make a purchase? Yeah. The good thing is that there are so many more accessible greenhouse options now. There's so many companies putting out a lot of great, more affordable kind of mid-range structures. You

34:27can certainly do spend as much as you want on a fancy custom bill. You can DIY. You can do very easy solutions. I think my biggest piece of advice for anybody going in as a beginner or trying to revive a defunct greenhouse they have is go back to the plants you want to grow. First, figure out what your gardening goals are, what you want to grow, what are the temperature requirements of those plants. Then you need to look at your environment, your location, your regional weather, how cold does it get where you are, how warm does it get. That's going to influence the type of framing and glazing. Again, the covering that you use, how much insulation does it need, how temperature tight does it need to be for your climate and your environment based on what you want to grow. And if you kind of work backwards from the plants you want to grow it can help you kind of weed out things that are either overkill like you don't need the bigger, fancier greenhouse. Maybe you need something simpler or you realize boy, you know that plastic covered hoop house isn't really going to do what I need

35:31it to do. And maybe I need something different. You know, the other thing you need to think about is orientation. Do you have a spot on your property that's oriented for maximum light exposure and doesn't have a lot of obstructions? It's not shaded by the house or there's not big trees right over it that could drop and break. So maybe you do plastic instead of glass. And that's it, even if you dream about a beautiful green glass house, if you've got big trees right over it that could be dangerous. Yeah. And then you need to think about zoning. Make sure you check your local zoning regulations because I've seen a number of people have to take their greenhouses down after they felt them because neighbors have complained and then it violated a zoning of like a setback or yeah, that's a big deal. You need to yes, you need to know your local laws for that. And then think about do you need power? Do you need water? Because if you're lugging watering cans across the yard to the greenhouse to water, that's going to get real unfun and you're going to stop doing it. So you need to think about ergonomics and the logistics. Do you need power to the greenhouse? Do you need to

36:35plumb some water there? Drainage? How's the water going to leave your greenhouse? Do you want to solid floor with drains or do you have a gravel floor and a place for that water drain away naturally without damaging your property? Those are the main things you need to think about and I cover all of those in the book, but start with the plants first and work backwards. Yes, that makes sense. Well, I have learned so much and I really appreciate you sharing. I know there's so much more to learn. I know. Especially with with your book, you just I feel like you just skim the surface, but especially like when you started talking about glazing and you know, you you go into detail about all of that in the book and even ways like someone does want to do something like citrus or orchids or ginger or you know, like some of the more exotic, less like just let us in tomatoes type vegetables and you have all that too. Yeah, so I wrote this book specifically to differentiate from a lot of the other home greenhouse books out there with very specific plant growing information that is not in a lot of those books. So there's about 75 plant profiles, detailed plant profiles in

37:40the book that I give you very specific. There is no bright diffuse light recommendation in this book. That's useless. It doesn't mean anything. So I give you a lot of specifics, all the basic crops that you want to grow and then like you said, I threw a bunch of exotics in there, you know, kiwi, figs, dragon fruit, cool stuff that you may not that you want to grow, but you don't know how. And then for each plant profile, I've listed grow the same because obviously I had a word count limit on this book. I can't fit it all in. So if there was like lots of other plants I wanted to include that I couldn't, I matched them up with a plant I gave you instructions for so you could use the same growing information for it. So I got very detailed on how to grow the plants in this book, which is I think kind of what gets left out of a lot of other greenhouse books. Yeah, I think it's going to be very, very helpful for for anyone. Great. Well, thank you Leslie so much for joining us today and I think that you're going to help a lot of people learn how to enjoy their garden even more if they decide to do a greenhouse. That is my goal and thanks so much for having me today.

38:47I don't know about you, but I learned so much from Leslie and I honestly did not want to cut this conversation off. I wanted to keep going, but I wanted to respect your time as well. So I would recommend I have looked through it. I've read quite a bit of it. Her book Home Greenhouse Revival. I think there's so much that even I can learn and I love that she had all those plant profiles that she mentioned. I think I'm going to dive into that and definitely get some more information on the crops that I grow. I think the biggest takeaway that I got from this episode was her putting science to my experience in explaining why plants behave the way that they do. And I think understanding that is going to help me make even better decisions as I utilize my greenhouse going into the fall and winter and into the spring for seed starting. So I'm excited to put all of this into practice. I hope that you have enjoyed it as well. And all the information for her book and where you can follow her is going to be in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for joining me

39:48today. I will see you again on next week's episode. So make sure you're subscribed to the podcast. So you get that dropping in your podcast player as we head into some timely fall topics going into the off season. Trust me, this is not the time that we want to just shut it all down. There's still so much we can do to take advantage of the rest of the season. So I will chat with you next week.