Busy Building

This is the original greenhouse in its old position. Its nice and close to the compost pile and gets a good amount of spring and early summer sunshine before the big trees overhead get their leaves. During the peak of summer it it shaded to help keep it cool. Most of the seedlings that get started in the greenhouse are usually set out in the garden beds by then.

This spring, I moved it forward and to the left which allowed me to build a second greenhouse, which I attached to the back of the existing one, double my growing space for the seedling that I start in early spring. These will be ready for the sale that I have in May. Stay tuned for the date. The 250+ tomatoes that I started are doing great. I am very grateful for the extra space this year. As a bonus, by moving the greenhouse to the left, I also gained a 3 foot wide bed next to it for some more growing space. I amended the soil with some compost and planted some beets. They are about an inch tall now and doing well.

An interior shot of the new addition. I added an automatic vent that opens when the heat inside the green house gets to be around 70 degrees. An exhaust fan at the opposite end kicks on when it gets to 80 degrees inside the greenhouse.

Without the automatic vents and fans, even on an early spring day, the temperature inside of the greenhouse heats up to over 100 degrees. This does not make the plants inside very happy.

The other project that I have been working on are two more raised beds in the front yard. We had an area of grass between the sidewalk and the street that has great sun exposure. I had been thinking about taking out this area of lawn out for a while now. All I was doing was watering and mowing this strip when really, its the perfect place to grow some more food. So this spring, out it came.

One of the new raised bed under construction.

The new raised beds in place. Filled with 12 inches of organic compost. The lawn that was there before was already on its own cycle for the automatic sprinklers, so all but one of the sprinkler heads were capped off and a tee and riser was placed in the center of each bed. I'll cut these off at soil level and install the drip lines to the plants.

This should work out great.

Once again, stay tuned for the the time and date of this years seedling sale. I will again be offering many varieties of heirloom, organic tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers as well as both summer and winter squash choices.