In many household plots, amateur and professional growers are erecting structures to protect plants from the vagaries of the weather and to extend the garden season for several months. But any greenhouse construction requires care at the end of the growing season. In this article, we will consider how to prepare a polycarbonate greenhouse in the fall for wintering and the new warm season, and whether or not to leave the greenhouse doors open for the winter.

Preparation and cleaning of the greenhouse for the winter period

At the end of the growing season in the greenhouse, it is necessary to carry out activities for the wintering of the building. It is also necessary to prepare the soil in the beds for spring. There is a whole list of works for which the most suitable time is autumn. Hothouse autumn preparatory work is a contribution to the harvest of next year.

Did you know? In the middle of the last century in the Soviet Union, such a wonderful structure as the Ivanov Vegetarian was invented and designed. This is a type of greenhouse, one side of which is a living room. The main highlight of the project is the location of the soil and the transparent ceiling at a high angle with respect to the sun, which allows the plants to be partially heated even by the winter sun.

Cleaning

All seedlings are removed from the soil along with the roots. Plants that still have unripe fruits (peppers, eggplant, tomatoes) are exempted from them.By the way, peppers and tomatoes removed by unripe can be put in a box and transferred to a warm room for ripening, after 10-15 days they will mature and will be suitable for eating. The beds are cleaned of mulch and fallen leaves.

The drip irrigation system is dismantled and carefully assembled, in the spring of next year it can be laid out again in the beds. Cut twine and other plant mounts. In whatever good condition the cords for gartering plant crops are located, they cannot be used next year, they are carriers of viral diseases and insects.

All old garter material must be removed outside the site, and it is best to burn it. Plant debris is also removed from the greenhouse, laid out in the sun for several days to dry, and then burned. For compost, it is also undesirable to use them, so as not to create a breeding ground for viruses and infections instead of nutrient soil.

All pots, boxes, buckets in which grown plants or young seedlings were grown are cleaned of soil residues, washed, disinfected, then dried and stored until the next vegetative season.

Soil fertilizer

The greenhouse is a structure in which the soil is heavily used, so greenhouse beds need to be fertilized twice a year - in spring and autumn. The most optimal is the introduction of organic fertilizers into the soil, such as semi-overripe manure of cattle, humus or good compost.Manure is laid out on the beds at the rate of one bucket (10 kg) per m², humus or compost is simply scattered with a layer of 10-15 cm. After the fertilizer is laid out on the beds, they dig the earth with a layer turnover. Digging depth - on the bayonet of a shovel.

The excavated land is not leveled, leaving this procedure until spring, since the resulting uneven surface contributes to both freezing of the soil and saturation of the soil with oxygen.

If the gardener has nowhere to get natural fertilizers, and the vegetative season in the greenhouse ends early, you can sow green manure on the beds (mustard, rapeseed, peas, lupine, beans, alfalfa). These crops sprout and grow very quickly.

If they are sown in early or mid-September, by the beginning of November, the beds will be densely covered with green plant carpet. The grown green manure is cut off at ground level and embedded in the soil (dug up).

Some vegetable growers claim that it is not necessary to plant green manure into the soil, it is enough to cut them and pour one of the biological products (Vostok EM-1, Shine-1, or Baikal EM-1) at the rate of 3-5 liters of solution per 1 m² To prepare the solution, take 0.5 cups of the biological product and mix with a bucket of water.

This quantity of solution is sufficient for processing approximately 3 m².

Changing the soil

A very effective, but time-consuming procedure, is a complete replacement of soil in greenhouse beds. To do this, remove the top layer of soil (10–20 cm) and take it out of the greenhouse, after which they fill the surface of the bed to the same height with fresh, fertile black soil.Fungicide use

The least time-consuming method is spraying the soil with one of the fungicides (Fitosporin-M, Bordeaux liquid, 10% solution of copper sulfate) and fumigating the room with sulfur smoke bombs. Fungicides are sprayed on the surface of the soil, it is also necessary to treat all the side surfaces and racks of the greenhouse, tools and equipment.

Biological preparations, such as Fitosporin-M, are sprayed only in warm weather, when the temperature inside the building does not drop below + 10 ° C.

Important! After fumigation with sulfuric smoke in a greenhouse, fungi and insect pests die, and mice and moles leave the greenhouse. But not all greenhouses can use sulfur. Sulfur smoke causes corrosion of the metal, which means that they cannot be used in polycarbonate greenhouses with a metal frame.

Fungicides will help to cope with bacterial and fungal diseases, but will not have any effect on insects (aphids, nematodes, spider mites), therefore, pests will have to carry out a separate procedure with fumigation with sulfuric smoke.spring-cleaning

Lastly, they wash the internal surfaces of the greenhouse: shelving, lintels, wall and track coatings. For washing use brushes and hot soapy water. At the end of wet cleaning, soapy water is washed off the surfaces using a water jet from a hose.

If in the summer months the grower had to fight with diseases or insects in the greenhouse, one autumn general cleaning will not be enough. It is necessary to carry out work on the disinfection of greenhouse surfaces, otherwise, spores of fungi, bacteria, viruses, masonry and larvae of pests safely overwinter, and the next season will again be held under the slogan of the struggle for the crop.Heat treatment

You can also conduct heat treatment of the upper layers of the soil. The method is acceptable for small, personal greenhouses with an area not exceeding 6-10 squares. For the heat treatment, a hot autumn day is chosen when the polycarbonate greenhouse is already completely cleaned, but not fertilized.

For several morning hours, the vegetable grower boils water in buckets and pours boiling water on the beds at the rate of: one bucket of boiling water per 1 m². First and until the end of the procedure, the doors and windows of the building must be tightly closed.

It is advisable to make sure that by 11 am all greenhouse beds are already covered with hot water and the room is clogged. The structure is not opened during the next 24 hours, in the steamed soil this time all fungal spores and bacteria are destroyed.

Do I need to close a polycarbonate greenhouse for the winter

So far, gardeners have not come to a common opinion whether it is possible to leave the doors of the greenhouse open for the winter or whether it is better to completely preserve the room until spring comes.

Important! After the greenhouse is fully prepared for wintering, it is strengthened from the inside with temporary roof supports. This support can be very important if the winter is snowy.

Arguments for an open door

The arguments include the freezing of insect pests and the disappearance of pathogens of fungal and bacterial diseases, as well as the prevention of snow sticking to the roof.

Freezing ground

Plant growers approve of freezing the soil in protective structures, as this contributes to the death of harmful insects and their larvae, and cleansing the soil of viruses wintering in the soil.

During heavy snowfalls, it is advisable not to leave the beds in the greenhouses naked, as freezing leads to the drying out of the soil. After freezing harmful insects in the soil for a month or two, the greenhouse beds are covered with a thick layer of snow (25–40 cm).

With the onset of the first spring days, the snow will melt and will serve as good moisture for the soil.

Wintering pests

The doors of the greenhouse, open all winter, help to balance the temperatures inside and outside the structure. In winter, frost kills harmful insects and their larvae wintering in the upper layers of the soil.

When it is as cold in the greenhouse as on the street, not only harmful insects will gradually freeze, but also fungal spores and pathogens wintering in the soil.

Did you know? When growing cucumbers, the greenhouse is ventilated only on one side, avoiding creating drafts. The most optimal climate for a cucumber is moist and hot air saturated with carbon dioxide. A small garden greenhouse can be saturated with carbon dioxide, simply by installing inside a tub with a solution of mullein and water during fermentation.

Snow sticking prevention

Since the temperature in the greenhouse is slightly higher than on the street, and the warmest part of the air rises to the ceiling, this can contribute to the melting of the lower layer of snow lying on the roof of the greenhouse. As soon as the frost gets stronger, the melted water turns into ice and is “tightly” attached to the roof of the structure.

When there is a need to clear a high cap of snow from the greenhouse roof, this will be impossible, since the bottom layer of the snowdrift as an ice holds tight to the cover.

As a result, this can lead to the fact that the height of the snowdrift on the roof of the greenhouse will increase over time, and after the thaw will turn into a wet, loose and very heavy substance. Quite often in winter there are such that in the thaw, wet heavy snow falls through the roof of the greenhouse inside the building.It is precisely the creation of the same temperature inside and outside the greenhouse structure that can prevent this unpleasant situation.

Did you know? To ventilate tomato greenhouses, ventilation vents are arranged on opposite walls. At the same time, one ventilation opening is located under the ceiling, and the second is near the soil itself.

Condensate

If the greenhouse is closed during the cold season, at the end of October or November at low positive temperatures inside the building, the air temperature becomes much higher than on the street. The warm soil continues to breathe, and condensation forms in the form of large drops on the ceiling of the greenhouse, which after some time showers rain on the soil.

The closed cycle of moisture in the greenhouse causes mold and growth of mycelium on the soil and walls. One or more openings help to ventilate the room and establish inside the same air temperature as outside.

The dangers of opening a greenhouse

Some experienced greenhouses believe that the doors of a polycarbonate greenhouse open throughout the winter are completely unacceptable.

Did you know? One of the varieties of greenhouse constructions is a greenhouse. The main difference between the greenhouse and the greenhouse is the low distance from the soil to the ceiling and a thick pillow of horse manure laid under the soil layer, heating the structure from below.

• Arguments against opening a doorway:
• Winter snowstorms or strong winds can loosen, or even knock down the structure if the wind blows directly into the doorway.
• An excessively large amount of snow can get inside the greenhouse during snowstorms, which in the spring will delay soil heating for several weeks.

The greenhouse is a shelter for growing garden crops. A vegetable grower who has such a building on the site, before other gardeners, will receive the first crop of pimply green cucumbers, red tomatoes or fragrant greens.