The Garden Under Glass

CHAPTER III A SMALL FRUIT HOUSE For Growing Grapes In the house which I am going to describe I can promise readers they will be able to grow grapes, figs, strawberries and tomatoes, besides using the house for forcing seakale, asparagus, rhubarb and French beans. In due course I will show how a vine, a fig, a few tomatoes and some pot strawberries can be grown in the ordinary greenbouse, but liere we presume that the grower has a liking for fruit and has decided to build a small fruit house which will serve also for other purposes. Probably—and preferably—the shape will be lean-to. The house need not be large, 12 feet being a suitable width. This would admit of an entirely inside border, and with the exception of a width of 2 feet at the back I would allow all the space to serve as vine border. This space might be retained for fig-trees, for they fruit the better if the roots are restricted. I have given plan and sectional drawings of fruit houses with scales appended. Grape vines could be grown along the front, four feet apart, with tomatoes between them ; the back wall might be devoted to figs, with tomatoes at each end of the house and pot strawberries on the shelves. Then on the portable stagings there could be growing plants or boxes of seedlings, and beneath the staging, rhubarb, seakale, asparagus and chicory could be forced. Thus while grapes predomin- »0