The weather outside right now is rainy, and cold. We are in what the old timers call "blackberry winter" here in the Great Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee. It is marked by the blackberry blooming, just like the "redbud" winter, "dogwood" winter, and "locust" winter are marked by blooms arriving on each of those types of trees. Let me tell you, those old timers knew what they were talking about!
This year's blackberry winter is complete with possible record-setting lows, and we are expecting below freezing both tonight and tomorrow night. Now that I have spent several hours in the rain covering garden beds, I have a little time to warm up inside while I share with you some of the wonderful greenhouse adventures we have journeyed through over the past several months!
For those of you who keep up with my posts, you might remember in January when we got our greenhouse. If you missed it, you can read about it here:
@freemotherearth/adventures-in-family-time-greenhouse
My computer died not long after that post was made, but I can assure you I have spent MANY hours in the greenhouse since then! Are you ready to see what's happened since then? It really has been downright amazing...and the current state of affairs in the world has actually been a great help for our push towards a more sustainable homestead!
I was really determined to grow everything, or nearly everything, from seed this year since we have a greenhouse. While I have "dabbled" in gardening over the past years, I have never truly considered myself a gardener due to the fact that I often rely on starter plants to heavily supplement my gardening. Of course, my patience with the cold months usually runs out at least a month before the cold leaves...
Since we don't have power to the greenhouse or a way to truly control the temperature in winter, it still isn't ideal for starting tomatoes in February. I did my normal inside setup for tomato and pepper seeds this year, but I was really impatient to start some seeds in the greenhouse! I got into my older seeds and started a few brassicas (kolrhabi, broccoli) in the greenhouse.
I did some research about building a mini-greenhouse inside of a regular greenhouse, and I think by next fall we will build something like that using plastic and led battery lights. But thats an adventure for another day.
In the early days of the season, we started by simply putting down a couple of pallets to set containers on. The picture below is from mid-March. There are potatoes, tomatoes, beets, peas, onions, echinacea, and several bulb flowers (hyacinth, crocus, tulip).
Soon after that we re-purposed several more pallets, chain link fencing scrap, bamboo, wood from some old tables, and pieces of an old metal animal cage to create spaces along either of the inside walls of the greenhouse. There are small beds for greens and radishes along one side, and peas are currently growing up the chain link fencing.
What a difference a month makes! On the left you can see the side that has beds for the bottom, and the right is solely for holding containers on both levels. Please note also that with the steel poles, hanging basket plants is also another level of plants.
At this point I would like to be clear that a greenhouse is an every day project. At this point I had already become "farmer frannie" ~ getting up every morning to water everything in the greenhouse before the sun hit it. If I happen to wake up later than the sun comes over the trees, I was in an immediate panic to get out there and water! Thankfully, in March it was close to 9am for the cutoff!
I talked to my pots, sang to them, babied them. I was in the greenhouse several times a day looking for the new shoot of a seedling. Believe me when I tell you I was so attentive that every single seedling got a personal greeting on the day they broke through the soil!
There is also the matter of paying careful attention to the temperature inside the greenhouse. Every day there was likely the process of opening each of the windows on the outside of the bays, then remembering to close them at the end of the day. As the days got warmer, there were also days of opening the door of the greenhouse for periods of time. This was particularly challenging with cats, because until your crop grows in the beds seem like big litter boxes... thankfully we were very attentive on those days and only had one small mishap.
We used cardboard to put down in multiple areas in order to stop the grass from growing, and to make a barrier so the seedlings didn't accidentally grow roots into the ground. There was a huge unexpected bonus from the cardboard. As I was transplanting the plants to the garden recently, I found earthworms in almost every single container that had been sitting on the cardboard. Since I make my own soil mix (there will be a post coming soon!) for using in the greenhouse, there were definitely not any worms in the pots to start with!
Once things were growing well in the greenhouse, the growth seemed so much quicker. Between the middle and end of April, everything had finally sprouted and most plants had at least their first set of true leaves.
Here's a decent list of what you see growing in the above couple of pictures. (I may have left a few out):
- Barry's Crazy Cherry tomatoes
- Chocolate pear tomatoes
- Green zebra stripe tomatoes
- Cherokee purple tomatoes
- Poblano peppers
- California Wonder bell peppers
- Rocky Top lettuce
- European Mesclin lettuce
- Easter Basket radishes
- Arugula
- spaghetti squash
- white scallop squash
- zucchini (2 different varieties)
- buttercup squash
- acorn squash
- yellow straight neck squash
- yellow crook neck squash
- canteloupe
- nasturtium
- dill
- fennel
- basil (4 varieties)
- celeriac
- Japanese cucumbers
- slicer cucumbers
- cilantro
- elder tree (cuttings)
By the end of April, many of my plants had awesome root systems coming out of the bottom of the pots. We had finally finished the big push to get all the garden beds for this year prepped and/or built, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of transplanting my greenhouse babies. Here's what the greenhouse looked like when I was a bit more than half way done. I could not believe how full it still looked!!!
I took some of the plants you see above to a few friends. I planted more in our garden beds. Although it had only been a few short weeks, my greenhouse has transformed completely and completely again. Today, my house plants are making a guest appearance during the blackberry winter. I still have some babies that need planted, and I did break down and get some habanero and cayenne pepper starter plants so those are staged and waiting to be planted.
The greenhouse is going to transition from food plants into a tree/shrub nursery over the next couple of months. Since I won't need the space until the end of the season for food (other than continuing to harvest the greens and radishes for a while), it seemed like a good idea to use the space for even more growing goodness. Of course, I am confident there will be a post or two for that as well!
(don't worry, there will be plenty of posts to show you the gardens soon...)
I hope you have enjoyed catching up with me in the greenhouse over the past few months. I am excited to share this season of gardening with you as the wheel continues turning. I would like to leave you with a reminder to stop and cherish nature around you, wherever you can find it. Whether it is a greenhouse on the homestead, or a city tree out your window, or even a bird flying overhead, remember we are a part of this Earth. See the reflection of yourself in the natural world, and see the natural world reflected in you!
