Greenhouse Updates

Our upcycled glass window greenhouse has been coming along, and I am happy to report we made some headway over the weekend and the end of the project is in sight! Over the weekend we built the raised beds, laid out the brick floor, and put up brackets for the seedling benches. I have been wanting a greenhouse like this pretty much all of my life, so this is big excitement around here.

We
started by putting in a concrete block for the front step and leveling out the dirt on
the floor. We also had to dig up quite a bit of mint that had crept in
from the mint patch nearby. Knowing how unruly mint can be, we put down a
layer of black plastic that will hopefully keep it from growing up
through the beds and floor. If not, we are big mint tea fans, so it will all work out.

We re-purposed the cedar boards from our old deck to build the beds, and built them around the perimeter to go under the benches, which will be metal grid fencing to let the light through. We found two panels buried in the blackberries that we can use on the sides, and we will look for something at the recycled building supply store for another one along the back wall. There should be plenty of room to start all the seedlings for our garden.

Any day now, I plan to get lettuce, kale and arugula planted for our spring greens. Our peppers can go in when the greens bolt in early summer, and the greenhouse should allow them to ripen a little further into the fall.

The greenhouse is shaping up to be a really nice place to just hang out, so hopefully the seedlings and salad greens will like it too! I am looking forward to that first home grown salad of the spring and many more to come.

“May our salad days last the rest of our lives.”
~Alicia Bay Laurel