After having forgotten one night in March to protect the tomato plants I had planted in the solar (unheated) greenhouse (very sad story on that here), it has been clear sailing! I've added some cucumber plants, and some potted marigolds and nasturtiums are doing just fine. And we've been using fresh mint for tea all week now.
This last week, despite the cold nights we've had, I've not been using the Reflictix cloches on the tomatoes that we used earlier. I've instead used two layers of floating row cover and every plant is happy! Could be because the soil temp 4" down is 70 degrees by the time the greenhouse starts cooling off at the end of the day.
The volunteer squash/cukes/pumpkins/whatevers that are coming up in the beds that came in with the compost are getting scary in both numbers and size -- I'm using them kind of as a soil thermometer at the moment and won't pull them out. I hope to move some to the outdoor compost areas to grow and and see what we come up with -- the curcubit family being famous for cross-pollinating willy-nilly and not breeding "true".
Sunday (April 5th), the first tomato blossom opened! More on a 2nd plant Monday. The blossoms on the Purple Cherokee are simply HUGE compared to others I've grown, and a cluster of those was on the 2nd plant to flower. These plants are 8 weeks from seeding and about 18-22 inches tall now... which seems bizarre, but true.
I have researched a couple of different techniques to hand pollinate the flowers, given that we don't have natural pollinators in this greenhouse. Here is one that I hope amuses you as much as it amuses me (10 second video), though I probably won't be using the technique:
We are doing our very best to water using only rainwater because we hate the idea of intentionally building up the soil mycorrhizal fungi and beneficial bacteria, only to use chlorinated water from the tap, which we think would set back the good little buggies. The rain this week allowed us to top out our 550 gal outdoor rainwater storage capacity, plus about 100 more gallons in the greenhouse.
If we usually plant little tiny tomato plants outside no earlier than May 15 and get our first fruit 2 months later about July 15, then if we planted these HUGE plants on March 24, and they bloom in early April, then the fruit... hmmmm....
No -- it's not a good idea to count our tomatoes before they set, much less ripen! Especially given the goof we made earlier that killed all the plants. (Actually, I potted up the frosted plants hoping that their excellent root systems would send out new foliage, which has already occurred in a third of these pathetic victims of our forgetfulness.) Still, the experiment has been fascinating and fun.
This last week, despite the cold nights we've had, I've not been using the Reflictix cloches on the tomatoes that we used earlier. I've instead used two layers of floating row cover and every plant is happy! Could be because the soil temp 4" down is 70 degrees by the time the greenhouse starts cooling off at the end of the day.
The volunteer squash/cukes/pumpkins/whatevers that are coming up in the beds that came in with the compost are getting scary in both numbers and size -- I'm using them kind of as a soil thermometer at the moment and won't pull them out. I hope to move some to the outdoor compost areas to grow and and see what we come up with -- the curcubit family being famous for cross-pollinating willy-nilly and not breeding "true".
Sunday (April 5th), the first tomato blossom opened! More on a 2nd plant Monday. The blossoms on the Purple Cherokee are simply HUGE compared to others I've grown, and a cluster of those was on the 2nd plant to flower. These plants are 8 weeks from seeding and about 18-22 inches tall now... which seems bizarre, but true.
I have researched a couple of different techniques to hand pollinate the flowers, given that we don't have natural pollinators in this greenhouse. Here is one that I hope amuses you as much as it amuses me (10 second video), though I probably won't be using the technique:
We are doing our very best to water using only rainwater because we hate the idea of intentionally building up the soil mycorrhizal fungi and beneficial bacteria, only to use chlorinated water from the tap, which we think would set back the good little buggies. The rain this week allowed us to top out our 550 gal outdoor rainwater storage capacity, plus about 100 more gallons in the greenhouse.
If we usually plant little tiny tomato plants outside no earlier than May 15 and get our first fruit 2 months later about July 15, then if we planted these HUGE plants on March 24, and they bloom in early April, then the fruit... hmmmm....
No -- it's not a good idea to count our tomatoes before they set, much less ripen! Especially given the goof we made earlier that killed all the plants. (Actually, I potted up the frosted plants hoping that their excellent root systems would send out new foliage, which has already occurred in a third of these pathetic victims of our forgetfulness.) Still, the experiment has been fascinating and fun.
