1. Organise your Glasshouse

The New Year is the perfect opportunity to reorganise your Glasshouse – making better use of your available space or adding additional growing areas with coldframes if needed. Here is some inspiration…

· Cold frames and partitions

Cold frames are useful for providing an extra growing space which is often needed during peak season. They provide a lower level of protection than is offered within a Greenhouse so are useful as a means of gently harden-off young plants before they are planted out. If you do choose to install your Greenhouse on a dwarf wall cold frames should be factored in at the planning stage.

A Hartley Botanic Victorian Lodge with cold frames at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Partitions are internal glass walls which provide a stylish way to separate your Greenhouse or Glasshouse into different zones. This will also allow you to create variations in climate for different plant groupings more easily.

2. Think more strategically about what to grow

Instead of automatically growing your old favourites, here are some ideas you could incorporate into your 2025 growing year.

· Grow premium edibles

If you are interested in growing edibles, think of the fruit and vegetables that you buy that are most costly - choose the premium products. Organic produce demands a higher price, so why not grow your own? They’re healthier anyway and reduce the need for expensive treatments. Organic salad is a good place to start and you can choose what to grow from what you would normally buy. Herbs are another great choice. Imagine adding organic basil to your tomato salad, or making an organic basil pesto from leaves picked in your Glasshouse. Wow. What about fruit? You could force an earlier crop of strawberries under glass, or how about the lovely cape gooseberries – very easy to grow from seed, ideal for a Greenhouse and really tasty too. High-end restaurants use them as a garnish for delectable deserts, dipping them in chocolate and using their filigree capsule as a dainty coronet.

· Try exotics

If you’ve got a Greenhouse and you are a keen gardener, the chances are that you have your eye on a few extra special plants that you’ve always wanted to grow. You might not need a Greenhouse to keep them the whole year around, but it might be just the right environment to allow you to take cuttings, grow them from seed or indeed just to over winter them. Indulge your plant fantasies and buy the plants that you have set your heart on. It’s a good idea to find a specialist grower that has a similar passion for the same plants where you can learn a bit more about their needs and nurture. Look out for the NCCPG collection, or indeed a nursery that grows and sells them so that you can buy good plants from an expert grower and share in their knowledge and experience.

· Diarise your seeds

If you have already placed your seed orders, write the labels to go in the seed trays, and put them together in an elastic band in alphabetical order so you only have to add the sowing date, later on. It is not always practical to grow everything from seed due to space constraints, so make a list of plants you intend to sow and those to be bought as plug plants, then check the catalogues and internet for the best prices. Plug plants save time and space in the Greenhouse and heating costs, too.

For more Greenhouse gardening help and advice, Hartley Botanic’s online magazine offers a wealth of information.

All Hartley Botanic’s Glasshouses and Greenhouses are handmade, bespoke and made to order. Customers interested in purchasing a Hartley Botanic Greenhouse should visit: http://www.hartley-botanic.co.uk or call 01457 819 155 for more information.