Farmers use portable greenhouses and sheds because they can be moved, and set up and broken down quickly-moved with the seasons. Oddly enough, modern technology even gives us greenhouses that set up themselves automatically and robotically. Growers that use them extend the growing season considerably.

Harnessing solar radiation in a greenhouse structure  has always been a boon to extend the growing season, ensuring a warm environment where plants can thrive.  The plants, soil, and moisture benefit from the heat and radiation of the sun. Glass or plastic walls not only protect the enviroment, but actually amplify and enhance the warmth and rays coming trough.

Greenhouses allow for different mini climates to be maintained, and so growing can take place when outside conditions are not favorable. So you can grow tomatoes in Winter. Loving great Jersey Beefsteaks like I do with mayonnaise on good bread in the summer time, it’s great to know I could grow them in a small greenhouse in yard, but I digress.

Actually an incredible invention, the greenhouse. The first recorded built greenhouses were used by emperor Tiberius in the early Roman Empire to ensure that he had a particular exotic vegetable available for the royal meal each day. Every day of the year. The plants were kept in a wooden cart and wheeled into the Italian sun during the day, and back to a warm environment in the evening.

The emperors vegetables were housed in a building that was glazed with sheets of mica, which is transparent, or glazed with “specularia” which was a type of oiled cloth that allowed heat and light to enter, but not visibility.

In the Middle Ages, The Vatican in Rome was the first institution to make widespread use of greenhouses (“giardini botanici”). With the expansion of exploration and trade in the early Renaissance, exotic plants were being brought back from far flung empires to the Pope. They needed controlled environments to flourish.

Hot houses, green house and potting sheds can all be greenhouses. Botanical Gardens, like famous ones in Kew in London (The Royal Gardens at Kew), in the Bronx and Brooklyn Botanical Gardens  in New York City, and many other places are large scale greenhouses but act as botanical records not necessarily for propagating.

I’ve been using portable greenhouses successfully and noticed that there were few sites online about the types available and the benefits of each so I thought I’d help out.

I hope you find what you are looking for here, or from friends I have listed on the sidebar.

Thanks for visiting!