We're having such fun trying to extend the growing season in our little unheated greenhouse. Now I know that tomatoes are heat-lovers, but with dreams of savory home-grown tomatoes in winter, I snipped the tips from some growing plants in the garden, and rooted them in soil to bring inside to try.
They rooted well and started to grow, but just couldn't make it. Two of the plants took on the strangest coloring. Their leaf veins started turning purple! We also had aphids and whiteflies on some of the plants, so I thought that there was some kind of infestation going on there too, but finally found that it was just too cold for the poor tomato plants. When the soil gets too cold for them, they can't take up the calcium they need and they turn purple, starting with the large leaf veins, and spreading out into the edges. So the tomatoes have now come inside to the living room bay window.
The green beans were a semi-success. They did well for a while, blooming and actually growing a few small beans, but as it's gotten colder, they've now given up and will have to go.
The hot peppers seemed to be aphid magnets, and no amount of soapy water would discourage them, so they had to go too, as did the other plant with whiteflies.
So, with those out of the way, we now just have cold loving plants in the greenhouse and they're doing well. Slowly, but well.
The pea pods are doing very well, growing out of their pot and down the wall of water filled heat storage buckets. I'm so looking forward to picking pods off of them for winter salads.
We have spinach, collards, onions, three different kinds of lettuces, herbs and some radishes and beets. The radishes seem to be all tops, and the herbs are doing just fine. The greens all seem to be growing well, just in slow motion, which is fine.
We have no added heat out there at all, but the double polycarbonate glazing and a stapled up layer of plastic with dead air space on the south side help gather what sunlight we do get and at least insulate. The temperature maintains in the 40's while outside it's been down to 16 and is usually in the 30's during these days of high wind and blizzard. Jim just checked the temps, and it's 6 degrees above zero this morning, and 33 out in the greenhouse. That's the coldest it's gotten so far. Not bad, for no added heat at all.
I took these pictures before the blizzard hit and we only had a few inches of snow. For the past four days it's been snow and high winds and we couldn't get out for 3 days of that time.
Last night I went out and harvested a salad for us for dinner. Just enough for a generous salad for two.This greenhouse has been such a fun experiment. Even if we can't grow all the good things we want to in there, it's been a nice thing to step into that space on these dreary days and see green things to greet me. We keep three florescent lights going for about 12 hours a day to help the plants along, and that costs us very little. We gain a bit of protection on that side of the house because of the greenhouse there, and that wall, which has always been cold to the touch in the wintertime, is warm now.
We're really looking forward to time to start our seedlings on those shelves in the early spring. That's when we'll really enjoy it. We're already making our list for our first seed order of 2011.
3 comments:
Hello! we must be in the cross over period when you lot over there are having morning and we lot over here are having mid-afternoon, as I've just caught your lovely comment on CP blog. Yes, I DO have a better camera, bought a few months ago, but I hadn't realised it made such a huge difference - and glad I forked out for it now! We have been hearing on the BBC about your blizzards, I am so pleased that you managed to get re-stocked and where would we be without those vital little wood burners! There is bad snow over here too, not where we are. I was very interested to read about your experiments with trying to keep things growing over winter; I had similar plans (though our poly tunnel is not lit or heated. I had three sacks of potatoes planted, which I dutifully moved in and our as weather decreed, but in end, although they did grow, the sub-zero temps got to them in the end, even inside and I've not had the heart to see if I have even the smallest potato harvest (I planned to crop them on Christmas Day). I also got some broad beans and runner beans going, in late autumn, but like you, had pest problems and then just sheer lack of light and the cold. I think one has to have a seriously good heating/artificial light system to grow out of season, or maybe I just don't know the old gardening tricks. However, I take some comfort that it's not just me being rubbish!
Oh yes, I forgot the aubergines - inside on the window sill - took all summer to get going in the tunnel, started blossoming in the autumn as the weather was turning, came inside and became a happy breeding ground for greenfly!
(Oh, and thirdly, I didn't mean to imply that YOU were rubbish! I meant that I thought I was being rubbish but now I see that I was probably fighting a losing battle, as you've had similar experiences!)Phew! I'll shut up now!
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