Begin Greenhouse Gardening

You Want a Greenhouse… What Next? You Have a Greenhouse… Now What?
This is the premier site to help you with your home greenhouse garden.

Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion provides a wealth of up-to-date information and tips for those who have a passion for gardening in greenhouses! Explore these pages to lead you down the path to the goal of a wonderful heat producing, food producing and flower producing greenhouse!

Keep up with even more home greenhouse topics on our Facebook Page where you will get regular greenhouse gardening tips.

If you want all your questions on greenhouse gardening answered, check out Shane Smith’s best-selling book, Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion. Click here to learn more about this handy resource.

Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion is also available in bookstores everywhere!

Listen to the recent two-part podcast interview with Shane Smith talking about his 36-year career in promoting home greenhouse gardening with Jennifer Ebeling, who runs the 6ftmama.com gardening blog and Still Growing podcast.
Listen to Part 1     Listen to Part 2

“…Shane Smith has been on the vanguard of ‘user-friendly’ greenhouse design and utilization for several years. Virtually any question which might be asked by either a novice or an advanced home greenhouse gardener is answered fully”

– HortIdeas

The book, Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion, authored by Shane Smith and published by Fulcrum, is a top-selling greenhouse book for home hobbyists. It was first released in 1982 and is now in its 3rd edition. Also in 1982, he wrote The Frost Free Greenhouse, for the Department of Energy. It was the first book written on the subject of farming with unheated greenhouse-like high tunnels, using only the design of the structure and solar heat to prevent frost.

Shane Smith is the Director of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, founded in 1977, and Wyoming’s only public botanic gardens. It is a volunteer-centered project (mostly seniors, youth and handicapped volunteers) with an emphasis on community and sustainability.

The operation includes 9 acres of developed grounds, one of the nation’s oldest and largest solar-heated and solar-powered greenhouses, and the Paul Smith Children’s Village, which opened in 2008. The Children’s Village was the nation’s first public children’s garden to receive LEED Platinum designation. He is currently in the early stages of developing the 62-acre High Plains Arboretum site on the site of a former USDA horticultural research station.

Beginning with his first garden radio program while in college in 1975, he has had a continual involvement in bringing gardening to the public via radio. Since 1978, he has produced a garden-oriented radio program on KFBC AM in Cheyenne, which is the longest continually running regularly scheduled radio program in the city.

For over 33 years, Smith has consulted and lectured nationally on gardening, horticultural therapy, greenhouses, public garden design, and community greening in 27 different states, Mexico, Venezuela, and Canada.

You can contact Shane Smith directly.

• Shane Smith has a BS in Horticultural Science
  He attained his registration as a “Horticultural Therapist, (HT)” from the American Horticultural Therapy Association
  He served as a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard University, 1989-90
  He has been in the greenhouse business for 36 years.

Under Shane Smith’s leadership, the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens has received recognition awards from presidents:

• Received the “American Entrepreneurial Leadership Award”, from Partners for Liveable Communities, in association with President Clinton, 1994
• President George Bush, “Point of Light Award”, 1990
• President Ronald Reagan, “Exemplary Volunteer Program”, 1986

Shane Smith, individually, is the recipient of:

• 2012 American Horticultural Society’s “Great Gardener Professional Award”
• 2012 National Garden Clubs’ “Award of Excellence”
• 2011 American Public Garden Association’s “Award of Merit”
• “Community Hero Award”, from Wyoming’s Governor Jim Geringer, 1996
• Harvard’s “Loeb Fellowship”, 1989 – 1990
• Wyoming Business Council “Award of Excellence”, for starting the State of Wyoming’s first modern farmer’s market

Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion
-by Shane Smith

The revised and expanded Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion is NOW AVAILABLE!

GREENHOUSE GARDENER’S COMPANION is user-friendly and written simply enough for the novice while providing advanced knowledge for the master gardener. Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion has been completely revised and updated. It is larger, more complete, covers more subjects, and is even easier to use. It has all new graphics, a new cover, and includes hundreds of illustrations.

This revision is the best yet! I worked most every weeknight for over two years to make this revision and the book the best on the subject of greenhouse gardening.

• Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion is the most comprehensive book on greenhouse gardening ever published. Turn your greenhouse into a flower, herb, and vegetable factory!
• This 497-page book covers everything including interior design, propagation, scheduling year-round production, solar-heated or conventionally heated greenhouse gardening, natural pest control, and an extensive listing of over 300 flowers, vegetables, and herbs!
• It is purposefully written to transform the complexities of greenhouse gardening into simple and easy-to-understand language. While it is thorough enough to stimulate and please even an experienced master gardener.

See more book reviews for Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion on Amazon.com.