Greenhouse - Part 2

Greenhouse - Part 2 

How it looks 4 months later

 May 20th - The beds are filled with purchased soil, pavers laid in the walkway to keep it tidy and clean.  Door has been added.  four tee bar fence posts in the shape of a tee pee are for pole beans.  Raspberry canes are planted in far bed, strawberries in middle bed.  Tomatoes are in the greenhouse.

After a month the tomatoes are growing nicely.

Bush beans first on left, then beets and carrots, more bush beans and then at the far end, peas.  The peas are Green Arrow, supposed to grow 24" high but they hit the roof.

In the outside beds, the squash are doing nicely, the scarlet runner beans are climbing, and the volunteer potatoes are thriving.  (sprouted potato peels from the compost bin).  

2 Weeks Later - It is amazing how much everything has grown...

One month & 3 days Later - The squash are taking over !!!  It totally choked out the smaller plants and corn and climbed up to the roof.  After it went another 4' across the roof I finally had to start trimming it all back!

 Inside the jungle I found a number of squash - this one was the largest.  As you can see in the picture below, it is now over 10" across.

 The vines have started dying back and have been severely cut back.  In the pictures below there are about 6 squash in the pathway plus the 3 roof climbers and 3 more on the ground .  Not bad!

TOMATOES!!!  Dozens of tomatoes and we have been eating lots of them!

One of my favourite varieties is "Super Fantastic"...  Tried and true!  You will notice the cherry tomatoes at the left and carrots between the tomato plants.  Companion planting, Carrots and Tomatoes get along very well.  The red saucers - well, Lee Valley Tools were offering red plastic sheeting to use as a mulch and claim they tested it and it improved yield by 20% better than plain plastic mulch.  I don't use plastic mulch but I put plastic plates down to help reflect red light up to the plants.  Can't say how much it helped because I didn't plant any without the plastic.  However, we are pleased with the crop!

Other Stuff in the Greenhouse - 

I won't bore you with more pictures but our purple bush beans (they turn green when cooked) are producing a bumper crop that I share with the Valley Seniors and other friends & family.  The carrots didn't get as big as I expected but it might be the variety.  I planted one Everbearing Strawberry plant to see how it would do and also see if I could get a runner or two from it.  Well, it produced a few berries and about a dozen plants on the runners.  

The peas produced nicely, our cylinder beets were good, some made into pickles and more to come.  Our Egyptian onions are doing great.  The main plant has more sprouts around the edge which means more seed onion next year, and the half dozen seed onions I planted are now a couple of inches tall.  I will harvest the seed onions from the stem tops in the next few weeks and will plant them out to use as green onions (they develop quickly).  If you have never heard of these onions they are also called "walking onions".   Google it!

If you build a greenhouse I hope you get as much pleasure out of it as I do out of mine, and as much produce as well!  

GG