When we started our first greenhouse, we were pretty much clueless. We knew we wanted to extend our growing season and to also enjoy our fresh veggies during winter, but how on earth should we start our research? Are you in the same situation? Are you excited to begin your greenhouse life but are you overwhelmed by how to get started?
There are different ways to gather information about starting a greenhouse. We ourselves have written a greenhouse beginner guide and we have given you an overview of the best online gardening courses (most aren’t specifically concerning greenhouses, but they contain a lot of great info on gardening in general). However, when you can spare the time and prefer thorough information and step by step guides, nothing beats a good book.
We’ll walk you through our favorite greenhouse gardening books and hope they can help you as well as they helped us!
Best greenhouse gardening books
1. Greenhouse gardeners companion
A true greenhouse gardening bible. Whether you’re a beginner or a more experienced gardener, this book will walk you through every possible process and answer your questions. Weather conditions, planting schedules, how to capture heat and release it during the night, … You name it and it’s there!
2. The greenhouse gardener’s manual
Another one of our favorite books. It’s super practical and will help you choose the design for your greenhouse, share the secrets of vegetable and fruit growing, and how to maintain your greenhouse year-round. Read the book and store it somewhere close, you’ll keep using it to look up specific information.
3. Greenhouse gardening for beginners
In our opinion the best greenhouse gardening book for beginners! It will teach you how to start a greenhouse step by step and has a lot of basic information about greenhouses and gardening in general. For a novice gardener the other books can be a bit overwhelming because there’s so much information in them, this book will filter the most important info to get started. When you’re a more experienced gardener, the information in this book will soon become too basic.
4. The year-round vegetable gardener
While this book is not solely focused on greenhouse growing, it’s so good we need to share it with you. This book will teach you how to use your entire garden for vegetable growing all year long, in any climate. The writer lives in Nova Scotia, if you can grow vegetables during winter there, you can do it anywhere! Combine outside growing with greenhouse growing and become completely self-sufficient when it comes to fruits and vegetables. This book is super practical and will help you every step of the way!
5. The complete guide to DIY Greenhouses (Black & Decker)
The best guide for a true handy (wo)man who doesn’t back away from a challenge! Building your own greenhouse is a time-consuming task, but has many advantages. You can design your greenhouse to fit all your needs and to make it the perfect aesthetic addition to your backyard. It’s also a budget-friendly option, as you decide which materials you want to use and how much you want to spend. This book will provide you with many plans and full-color step-by-step photos and instructions to guide you every step of the way. A fun extra is a plan to build a greenhouse completely from upcycled building materials, or how to create the greenest greenhouse!
