Greenhouse pics!

I affectionately call my greenhouse my 2-pound a week weight loss program. It is still a work in progress, but I have made progress. Thought I would post some pics.

These are my cukes. I have to resist the urge to start pickling as I am headed to the lake this Friday and want to take some up with me for eating. The pickling will start when I return.

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These are the tomato stands. I stake my tomatoes on twine - real hillbilly like. Works for me, and the vines are loaded with fruit.

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Some celery and green onions. I try to stuff as much in a bed as possible.

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Brussel sprouts and cabbage

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Some watermelon and pathetic celery that I rescued.

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I have a couple of strawberry beds. Any advice on wintering them in the greenhouse would be appreciated.

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Some herb pots. I have been using lots of fresh herbs lately. Just love them!!

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And lasty, my zucchini. I should have my head examined for planting that much of it! I am sure one or 2 plants would have been fine - so I planted 8.

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Should have zucchini to bbq at the lake though. I am excited about that.

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Hope you enjoy the pics. This is my first year growing vegies in a real greenhouse, so any advice from all you experts out there is welcome indeed!

Beautiful plants! I wish I lived closer I would come raid your greenhouse. (Just kidding)
That is such a nice organized place, I could only wish for something like that. Great job.

I am so jealous and I am thinking i need a green house now

Wow You have quite the Green thumb!!!
Everything looks amazing. Nice and Healthy
Great way to keep busy!

I still can't get over the beautiful planters you donated to the CHB silent auction! Some very happy people when home with them!
On the strawberries for overwintering I would dig them up and store them in your cold room or well pit or if your greenhouse is shut down for the winter open the doors all winter and shovel snow on the bed to keep them cool and insulated.

Hidden River wrote:Beautiful plants! I wish I lived closer I would come raid your greenhouse. (Just kidding)
That is such a nice organized place, I could only wish for something like that. Great job.

You are the very first person to reference me and organized in the same sentence! The place is a mess, I only showed you some of it!

The greenhouse was not particularily expensive. I have not heated it or run power to it yet - that is the expensive part. It doesn't take much more than a couple hundred dollers worth of lumber and plastic to get a start. I had a couple of 10 X 12 wooden cold frames for the last 10 years. They worked fine. I only bought this as it happened to land in my lap for a great price.

BTW, if you are ever close, even Saskatoon, I will meet you there and fill your vehicle. I might be full of zucchini though!

k.r.l wrote:Wow You have quite the Green thumb!!!
Everything looks amazing. Nice and Healthy
Great way to keep busy!

I still can't get over the beautiful planters you donated to the CHB silent auction! Some very happy people when home with them!
On the strawberries for overwintering I would dig them up and store them in your cold room or well pit or if your greenhouse is shut down for the winter open the doors all winter and shovel snow on the bed to keep them cool and insulated.

You are very welcome. Next year I will be more organized and have some good ideas for some interesting planters.

I think I may try to cover with straw and shovel snow on them. The key is to give them a dormant period and avoid a lot of freeze/thaw cycles. It is all about trial and error.

Ooooohhh! *lovesick sigh* Look at those beds! Bet you dont spend four hours a day pulling weeds! I have a quick question, what size board did you use in constructing those lovely beds?

For your strawberries you may want to stack square bales around your bed also as they need the protection. For some reason when you have raised beds they seem to freeze harder than your normal ground and you will loose many.

Hee, hee, I remember last year when you got the monster, smiling. It was funny and I wondered how it would ever turn out, such a job, I am sure, but clearly it came to pass. Lovely to see what you are growing, a long jump ahead of most people, me including. My garden is slow, oh so darn slow, it is the rain and lack of sunshine, no doubt, lots of warmth, but not enough of the good sun rays. It will come. The plants that love the moisture and a little more cool are doing well, but nothing like they should be. Love your greenhouse, and who cares if what we don't see, that you have hidden, by not showing us pictures , well, as said, who cares, you got food a'comin' your way!! Beautiful day, CynthiaM.

Swamp Hen wrote:Ooooohhh! *lovesick sigh* Look at those beds! Bet you dont spend four hours a day pulling weeds! I have a quick question, what size board did you use in constructing those lovely beds?

I used 8 foot untreated 2X6, much to my dads dismay as he is sure they will rot in a couple years. I don't like the idea of chemicals from the wood leaching in to the soil.

Oddly, there is almost no weeds in the beds. I think it is because you only water the plants, and not the whole bed. The weeds grow long and leggy, as well, with almost no root so even the dandelions are easy to pick. When I dug the beds I mounded up the soil, and added a half bale of peat and a giant bag of compost to each bed. Each year from now on, I will just add a couple bags of compost and see how it goes.

Sadly, I do have a giant patch of Canada thistle in there that we didn't kill before we built the greenhouse, now it a a thorn (literally) in my rear end! Gonna have to resort to chemical warfare I think.

Cynthia, we have had a lot of sun, even with all the rain, so most people here have nice looking gardens. Sometimes we get lucky on the prairies.

Carmen your greenhouse looks fantastic

Wish you weren't so far away .... I'd come raid your zucchini patch in the fall lol

babieblues wrote:Carmen your greenhouse looks fantastic

Wish you weren't so far away .... I'd come raid your zucchini patch in the fall lol

You are not that far away. If you PM me with your address some time, I will bring you some. I am in the city at least twice a month. The zucchini will be ready next week! Don't wait until fall!

Soon as I figure out the PM thing on here I will send you my new address and phone number. You'll have to stop by for coffee next time you are in the city
Would love some zucchini. There's a recipe on here for zucchini salsa that my family just loves.
Didn't plant anything here this year. The yard here is the size of the livingroom on the farm and crammed full of things from the farm I didn't want to let go of.

Beautiful, just beautiful!
I am jealous of how far ahead your plants are. Also jealous that you can grow things I just can't here.....sigh.

Have you tried eating the zuch flowers? If you are going to have tons, the flowers are nice fried and my dad, an old Italian guy, used to make us fruitilies (sp?) when were were kids. You pick the flowers, take out the innards and just use the petals. Dip them in pancake batter (actually it was a little thinner than pancake batter) and cook them like pancakes. We would have them with butter and syrup, or jam or even just dusted with a bit of icing sugar sometimes. I used to look forward to them so much!!!
There are a lot of different things you can do with the flowers, just google it. In Australia they eat them alot and serve them in the 'fancy' restaurants.

coopslave wrote:Beautiful, just beautiful!
I am jealous of how far ahead your plants are. Also jealous that you can grow things I just can't here.....sigh.

Have you tried eating the zuch flowers? If you are going to have tons, the flowers are nice fried and my dad, an old Italian guy, used to make us fruitilies (sp?) when were were kids. You pick the flowers, take out the innards and just use the petals. Dip them in pancake batter (actually it was a little thinner than pancake batter) and cook them like pancakes. We would have them with butter and syrup, or jam or even just dusted with a bit of icing sugar sometimes. I used to look forward to them so much!!!
There are a lot of different things you can do with the flowers, just google it. In Australia they eat them alot and serve them in the 'fancy' restaurants.

You know what is kind of funny. I have spent my whole life jealous of the BC folks because they can grow fruit! I can't grow all that beautiful summer fruit. Never in a million years did my geographically uneducated brain think that someone in BC could be jealous of MY growing conditions. If I were closer I would be happy to share.

I have always wanted to try stuffed zucchini flowers. Perhaps this year. I absolutely love soft goat cheese and I think it would be perfect in a zucchini flower. My question is, can you use the male flowers too, or just the female ones?

Babieblues, if you have not moved recently, I think I have your number. I will look you up next time I am in the city. Jeanie and I will need an excuse to come visit, and by the looks of it, we will have more garden stuff than we can handle.

No we haven't moved, still in the same place same phone number. Would love to see both of you