A Summer in Pictures

I've been meaning to share the joy of weekly flower harvests. The season just got way too busy to fit in a blog post, though. So, here, without the labor of more reading, is a sample of what First-Flower's first market year included. Bloom where you are posted!

 

Setting Up, Moving In

 Here is the completed greenhouse on Halloween day. Not visible is the guyline going from the back end to a driven 2X4, all conceived of and installed by the Patient Spouse to minimize racking and provide one more anchor against prevailing winds. Shelter Logic's plastic tarp "glazing" seems much sturdier than standard 6mil greenhouse film, but it is hard to imagine enough light coming through to foster plant growth and also allow the interior to warm significantly.
     Originally, I was going to install the end panels only, to check if that mystery roof angle (remember the gray macaroni pipes?) was properly done, then box up the glazing and wait until seed starting season to finish the project. It seemed a waste to start the clock on wear and tear from  sun and wind, since the completed house was intended for seed starting. It also seemed like installing the cover would take no time at all (meaning I could remove the glazing in summer and grow crops in-ground on this site). However, as construction progressed, I began to plan differently. It seems like a waste to have indoor space and not start experimenting with it. I'd rather know how it heats (and freezes) relative to the outdoor climate now, and not when there are $200 worth of seedlings inside. Why not try out a winter crop, recognizing that this should have been planted in September but that a few free sample seedlings could provide a sense of what I'm working with—and maybe a dinner as well.
      As to the future summer use and permanence/impermanence of this house, having put up the cover and sides it is clear this is no quick job. 2-3 hours seems a modest estimate of what it takes to dress or undress the frame, and that's with nice unrusted hardware. It may remain an indoor space year-round, though that will mean coming up with a reasonable and inexpensive means of irrigation if it is going to be useful growth space all season next year. IN THE MEANTIME:

     Last year's two cold frames are installed, giving a 1' path between them for watering and servicing. Eliot Coleman promises this greenhouse-within-a-greenhouse will add nearly 20 degrees of protection to any winter crops with the cold frame covers installed. As an experiment, I've planted some seedlings salvaged from the vegetable garden (self-sown): "Tennis Ball" lettuce, dill, cilantro, misticanza and arugula. Outside of the frame is a row of onion "Ailsa Craig" I think might sprout at some point and provide me seedlings for the summer onion crop with far less trouble than I'd get planting them indoors in February. I've seen nothing written about fall-seeded onions, and only know this is how the Evergreen Bunching Onions manage if left to their own devices. If you think about it, in the wild any plant ripens and drops its seed to winter some dormant season on the ground. So why don't we seed in the fall and let the seeds time themselves, rather than coming up with these elaborate indoor methods? With plants native to warmer places, it makes sense that the gardener has to make an artificial early spring in a heated greenhouse. But for cold-climate crops like onions, potatoes, spinach, leafy greens, etc., why not fall plant?
     Guess I'll find out. Meantime, it's tempting to go crazy with the theory, and put in more than a plot of arugula and a row of onions and lavender. I start to imagine a nastirtium crop put in now, while I'm thinking of it, to vine and trail around the outside foundation wall as soon as it's of a mind to sprout in spring. Why not carrots? Broccoli? Kale? Easy to fool myself and my years of experience, as the in-house temp soars 20 degrees above the outdoor 60F on this first, sunny, warm fall day...
     I think Coleman sez "no," though—something about the lessening hours of sunlight and its lowering angle causing plants to shut down growth until early February. So I put the seeds away for more well-reasoned times. Still, a November salad looks a promising prospect. I spend the remainder of the day moving the burn pile a safe distance from this meltable plastic home, and my spirit soars towards the coming season. Bloom!

Greenish House, Part Two

     The greenhouse arrived a week sooner than expected. It weighed about 145 pounds and arrived UPS in a box much, much smaller than I expected. (The UPS man was nevertheless relieved to be rid of it. He declined my offer of unloading assistance—probably company policy—but admitted he had been dreading this stop since he put it on the truck that morning. He looked like he was getting ready to smoke a celebratory cigarette as he heaved himself back into the driver's seat after dragging the box into the garage.)
     This greenhouse is Shelter Logic's "Greenhouse in a Box". The distributor, Home Depot, had great over-the-phone customer service, and also offered free shipping without adding $75-$100 to the base price like other distributors. At just under $400 for 200 square feet of greenhouse space, I know I am getting a chintzier-than-pro product. After looking at some other Shelter Logic structures in the neighborhood, though, I've gone against my better judgement and am willing to give chintzy a try. Those other structures look tight, square, tidy, and have stood up to area conditions for at least a year or two. The online customer ratings of this greenhouse run the gamut from "Great product for this price point" to "Fell down twice in as many days." The problem seems to come in one of two ways: this is an IKEA-like major assembly project and some folks really hate that kind of thing; and/or it needs way more anchoring than the manual suggests.
    The possibility of my investment taking flight is the harder of the two issues to address.  I've stood in a sturdy USDA-grade high tunnel in a serious windstorm and I understand how wind and 6mil plastic relate to one another (think: kite). The 4 "free" auger anchors supplied with the kit seem like a nice start, but have less holding power than the neighbor's dog picket pin, and I'm guessing in a windstorm this sucker is going to have more than 4-dogpower pulling strength. The bottom boards I built for the homemade greenhouse are now the bottom board retrofit for this kit: 60 board feet of 2X6, with the greenhouse's legs screwed to it and it screwed to three 2X4 posts driven into the ground. Presumably, the structure itself can stay upright with this kind of anchor, as long as it is assembled exactly the way the manufacturer intended. Which leads to the other problem: building from a kit.
     There are those that love a kit, and those that chafe at having to follow directions slowly, exactly and in order. I love IKEA. If IKEA made a greenhouse kit, I would buy it. (Dig those free Allen wrenches!) This Greenhouse-in-a-Box isn't IKEA-level design genius, but the quality is at or near IKEA-grade. Although the instructions claim two people can assemble the kit in 2 hours, I assume this is a weekend-long project.
     Sorting the pieces takes an hour. (Consumer tip, Shelter Logic: if you put a dot of colored paint on each part instead of a smeary six-digit number stamp, or even bundled like pieces together in the box-especially those three kinds of bolts —90 of them—which only differ 1/8" in length—it would be ever so much easier for the builder.) Here is the greenhouse, sorted into its components, on a very cold day, in the basement garage. I usually arrange flowers here. This is far more exciting.

(Note the IKEA toolkit. Indispensible! Likewise the set of socket wrenches my dad bought years and years ago when I got my first car. Thanks, Papa!) This kit necessitates a 7/16" socket, a mallet for gentle persuasion, a stepladder, and later, a couple long pieces of rope. That's it!
     Once the parts are sorted, it's relatively quick work to make the two end frames and three center sections - except that those parts that look like big gray elbow macaroni in this photo, and which determine the angle of the roof. These can fit either way onto the leg and eave pipes, but give the roof a different angle depending... I wonder which way is right, and go for an educated and uniform guess. (Again, Shelter Logic could have made an identifying orientation mark or a detail drawing in the instructions to aid with this critical step.)
     Now, here are those pieces, stacked in the yard and waiting to go up to the cleared spot. They are lightweight, but cumbersome. Especially in what remains of the blackberry patch...
   By lunchtime, a structure rises in the footprint of the first try. It is far more graceful. I'm glad to have put effort into site prep. All the joints are loose. That's just the nature of the design(chintzy). (Heck, it's a greenhouse-in-a-BOX, fer christsakes!) It means the whole structure wracks on uneven ground, in this case listing southward as if it wanted to go into the warm kitchen for a cup of coffee...  Wait: that's me that does. Fearing wind, I wait to get the whole frame anchored before putting up the end walls, which looks like a two-person job.Ta-Dah! (for now.)