These Two Hands

Stuff is doing so well in the greenhouse that it’s making me wish I’d done this years ago. I have never grown peas this exuberant, never grown lettuce and spinach with such gorgeous, unblemished leaves.  Here’s how the main bed looked in there in early April:

That red-and-yellow box is a worm compost bin. An old cat litter box I drilled into a sieve with 1″ holes all over the bottom and sides. I can lift the lid and dump in any kitchen scraps the chickens can’t have, plus the occasional wad of dryer lint or shredded paper. The worms can come in and dine, and then leave and poop elsewhere… all over my plants hopefully. Liquids will just run out the bottom, never pool and become anaerobic.

All my seedlings are looking happier than they ever, ever have under years of working with an intense fluorescent light setup. The filtered real sunlight through the greenhouse plastic makes much more robust plants, which allows me an earlier start and a faster takeoff once these guys are really planted.

Peas a month ago, climbing up the strings I had just hung (the strings are pulled taut to the bottom with long hooks made from bicycle spokes).

I bought that dragonfly a couple years ago at a craft show from someone who makes sculptures out of old car parts. He had some amazing stuff. I’ve got a little birds’ nest too. Finally, somewhere to show them off!

I took these pictures weeks ago and never got around to posting them. So if you can imagine, it’s a freaking jungle in there now.

Those pea vines are climbing 9′ strings. Now they have reached the top, doubled over and are growing back down, just loaded with blossoms and mini peas. I’ve never ever had a successful harvest of peas before, I’m really excited. And I’ve lost track of the number of salads we’ve had from the greens; having a greenhouse is helping us eat healthier, at least.

The only thing I haven’t been happy with is the parsley and cilantro; they are sort of wispy and wan. Which really sucks because I use those A LOT – like half a bunch to a bunch with every dinner not even counting juicing. I was really looking forward to not having bunches of cut herbs melt into slimy ichor in the fridge anymore. It might be something in the soil, right, except the spinach in the same bed but different position did awesome and yielded three salads’ harvest before bolting. Probably there’s not enough light in that corner. It’s going to take me a while to learn all the little nuances of growing in here.

I’ll try and remember to take a more recent picture – with planting season full underway, it seems I’m perennially behind in everything, but I have so many little things to share!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 19th, 2016 at 10:40 pm and is filed under garden & farm, House, before & after, soil geekery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.