In autumn everyone lines their greenhouses with bubblewrap to keep the warmth in.
Then, once that has served its purpose, about now, everyone takes it all off again.
But then it gets a bit hot and bright in the greenhouse so we all get up a ladder and paint it with shading paint, which then has to be scrubbed off in autumn, prior to spending a weekend or two pinning back up the bubblewrap.
You see where I’m going with this.
It only took me a couple of goes at this before I realised it wasn’t for me. The main problem was the amount of time it takes, as compared to the amount of gardening time I have.
The first time I insulated the greenhouse it took me three weekends to finish it.
Not entire, solid weekends: they went the way of the flat stomach and the lie ins.
No: three weekends of snatched moments in between putting small people on potties, fetching snacks, making tea, refereeing arguments and so on and so on, up and down the ladder.
What occurred to me, like a slightly harassed Archimedes (lying in the bath? Pah…), was that the bubblewrap could work as shading, so avoiding the need to spend ages taking it down at this busy time of year. Eureka.
I have left it up ever since.
I wish this were an unqualified success story and I could rewrite the greenhouse books, but unfortunately my greenhouse is parked smack bang under a tree, exactly where those same greenhouse books say it isn’t meant to be (it was the only place for it; it’s a nice tree) so it doesn’t get overheated in summer, in fact if anything it’s a little shady, but the theory is good.
It really should work for those of you with correctly placed greenhouses and equally demanding dependants.
