Growing Nicely on Earth Day - With A Little Help

Today is Earth Day and we are working with earth!  I spent a lot of time transplanting plants into larger pots, moving plants around, and working in the greenhouse.  Harold spent time filling up "craters" left in the yard when he moved snow this winter with his tractor.   It has not been really warm lately.  I put things in the greenhouse at the end of March (almost 2 months earlier than in regular gardens up here), hoping that I would get a head start on things.  But we've had some really cool nights and my greenhouse isn't heated by anything other than a small portable heater (which I hate to use unless I have to because of the electric costs).    Some plants are really doing well, like spinach and garlic and lettuce.  But other plants not so well.   It takes a lot of trial and error to really know how to grow things in a greenhouse, and I'm still learning!
     The other day I went to visit a friend who is a master gardener and has two huge high tunnel greenhouses, and used to have a professional retail greenhouse for 30 years.  In fact when I first moved up to these parts, I bought plants and seeds and trees from her greenhouse business.   Of course all of HER plants were doing extremely well and were huge.  She is almost ready to harvest cauliflower!  She has raspberries 4 feet high!  She has romaine lettuce that they have already been eating!  She got things started in her greenhouse on March 1.  So I asked some questions to see what I needed to do. 
     They have built up several platforms for plants that can be covered with plastic all around, and have a heater underneath.  Harold and I thought:  Yes!  We can do this!  So Harold built a nice platform for my greenhouse out of a recycled pallet and some scrap lumber.  We had some old plastic sheeting to re-use, too.   And so here is what we came up with:

Our platform for getting a head start on plants in the greenhouse.  On cool nights, we can either put down the plastic draping all around, and/or use the heater underneath.   The large area underneath for heating will diffuse the heat and won't be too harsh for the plants, as heat rises.  If we don't need to heat, but the evening will be possibly frosty (but not in the lower 20's for temps), the plastic should be enough to protect.   The plants get plenty of sunlight and air, too.  I can fit 8 trays of plants on top, and also some on the bottom (if I use really low heat).  These plants will be hardy and healthy when it's time to put them outside in the regular garden.

 Here is a closer look:

I have one side of the greenhouse planted up with bok choy, carrots, snow peas, lettuce varieties, and spinach.  The garlic is doing very well, as you can see in this photo.

I put up some fencing for the snow peas to be supported on:

Here's a photo of Harold after he finished filling in some of those craters:

Good job Harold!  You made these craters, now you can fix them!

As you can see in the above photo, the grass is green, but the trees have not leafed out yet.  I had a picture of our apple tree buds a couple blog articles ago, and the apple tree is coming along nicely:

There is so much to learn about growing things!  Growing plants in a greenhouse takes a special technique because of the high humidity and temperatures.  Even on  a semi-cloudy day, the temperature can be 90 to 100 degrees in there.  I am constantly adjusting the sides up or down, and watering sometimes several times a day.   This is my third year for growing things in my little greenhouse, and I'm still learning.   For example, I wanted to put some gladiolus bulbs in there.   I read up on the internet about how to grow glads in the greenhouse.  But the article warned that thrips might have wintered over in bulbs dug up from last fall, and they will cause big problems in the greenhouse because of the high humidity.   Thrips are hard to get rid of, they say.    Oops!  Glad I didn't just put them in, or I might have had a bug problem!   The Univ of Minnesota Extension Service said to control thrips in wintered over bulbs, by putting them in a closed paper bag with some moth ball crystals for a few weeks.  So I did that.   I'll try a few of these bulbs in there to see what they do.   The rest will go back outside.   But I know that professional growers plant and grow many beautiful flowers in greenhouses.  A person has to know what to do though.
   On this Earth Day I want to remind everyone to recycle, reuse, and conserve!   Re-purpose things if you can, don't go out and just buy new.  Don't make multiple trips to town, when errands can be bundled.  I like to hang clothes outside to dry and I'm glad I am in a position to do that.  (I know that many people in the city cannot do this)   There are lots of little things we can all do to preserve this beautiful earth for our children.  There is a lot of waste these days, especially in packaging of products.   Those hard to open plastic wrappers that toys and tools come in, is especially annoying!  I try to buy things that are not wrapped up in multiple layers of plastic.   We should try to take our own shopping bags to the store, not just have everything bagged up in those plastic bags.   I remember as a child, grocery stores would save boxes and 'bag' your groceries in those!
     The Lord made us stewards of this beautiful earth, and it's our duty to take good care of it!