I recently bought a commercial greenhouse, and I have to say that I am pretty pleased with it. The builder explained a lot of things to me, and I learned as much about planting as I did about green houses. There is no firm line between commercial greenhouses and ones for private use, easy. Putting together a commercial greenhouse is largely a matter of what you are doing with it.
You see, I decided to build a greenhouse long ago, and had succeeded pretty efficiently. My own greenhouse was by far the best one in the neighborhood. I grew All kinds of things, from rare and exotic plants to staple crops. When I decided to upgrade to a commercial greenhouse, however, I was mostly thinking about incorporating a bigger space. Building a greenhouse had been fun, but I had been growing so many medicinal herbs that I was actually getting orders for them. Having a brand-new, cold frame greenhouse seemed like the natural solution.
I was really surprised when my builder told me that I did not need a whole new commercial greenhouse. He agreed with my idea to add on some space, but he suggested that, if I reorganized the greenhouse that I already had, I could just build a separate addendum. I I decided to take his opinion pretty seriously, since he had no reason to lie to me. He would have made a lot more money off of building a brand-new commercial greenhouse, but instead he told me that I should organize my plants more efficiently. He told me that most people who grow in green houses do not realize how little room plans actually need. Provided that the greenhouse has sufficient oxygen and the temperature and moisture content are carefully regulated, a commercial greenhouse can be literally packed with plants.
The great thing about running the commercial greenhouses according to his plans was that it actually saved me a lot of energy. You see, the more carefully packed your greenhouse is, the less energy it uses. There are more plants to suck up the available water and heat, and it is easier to control all of the climate factors in a smaller space. Sometimes I still think about how neat it would be to have the huge commercial greenhouse that I had originally envisioned, but I know I'm better off the way I ended up doing things.
|
