The First Storm

Welcome to New England where it may snow in October and be back up to the 70 degrees in November. Winter swooped in to ruin our outdoor plans for Halloween and to test the structural soundness of our greenhouse. Bad news, no candy for the kids; good news, the greenhouse held up throughout the storm. Now, to be honest, I usually complain about any snow that comes through, but this time I am grateful because it gave us the chance to make some tweaks to our design before the real snow shows up. The first thing we did was hustle to get our compost into the beds and straw on the floors and then made some structural additions from there.

After the snow settled there was a noticeable sag at the top of the greenhouse, so we added a support beam in the middle of the greenhouse that seemed to solve the problem and it also became a perfect place to hang a thermometer! Another area that we found a noticeable draft was through the door slats now that the wood has had some time to settle and constrict. We will use some cocking to seal up the seams and that should be an easy fix there.

After a good few days of cold temps we came to the conclusion that we needed to add heaters because the air was just just too chilly inside without it. Hopefully our electric bill not be out of control…..time will tell. We are going to add a timer that alternates the heat in the beds and the electric heater. It has worked out well so far and is a nice escape from the winds that have been whipping through the area over the past week. One last heat storing fix will be to add the row over the beds. I am thinking of adding some lights so I can hang out in there as it gets darker earlier and earlier.

As for the plants we have put in 4 rows of bush beans on October 2^nd and will be planting some kidney beans, navy beans, cranberry beans and black beans around a teepee structure this week. I have a friend bringing her son over who loves gardening and will be helping me plant some garlic and visiting our resident keeper of the garden, Mr. Dragon. He is currently watching over out chive plant that continues to thrive in any area that we relocate it to. Maybe it’s the dragon magic? We also have some herbs growing right now, including dill, parsley, basil, and thyme along with a few different types of lettuce. I think the rest of the beds will hold spinach, carrots and possibly some hot peppers, but that last one is not a definite yet.

Until the next storm we will continue to tinker with the design and function of the greenhouse and then I’m sure we will find some more things that we could do better. This is a learning process and I don’t want to hold onto any one idea too tightly. The more mistakes we make the more we will learn in the long run. So, bring on the storms!