The Greenhouse is Ready!

I spent today getting the greenhouse ready for spring. It took a while, but it's good to have it out of the way.

I set the strings for the floating row cover on each side. Typically we only have one side of the greenhouse covered, but it looks like it is going to be a busy year for our seedling business.

I took some time to replenish the raised beds in the greenhouse with some fresh compost. 

Before tilling in the fresh compost, I found some seedlings still hanging on from the winter. I had planted a ton of lettuce in the fall, but I was too late and they never really grew. There are several plants that stayed at that small size over the winter, and are apparently growing again. I pulled them out and quickly put them in a raised bed that has been freshly watered and loaded with compost. It amazes me that there is growth in the greenhouse already after not being watered for 3 months and dealing with freezing temps. These are some strong lettuce plants I guess!

We also have a couple of onions sprouting up from an onion that we planted from our pantry that had decided to sprout. We planted this guy at least 4 months ago and it is coming up strong.

The large tomato bed at the end of the greenhouse became overrun with grasses. They sprouted through the bottom layer of bricks and traveled to the top. This choked out our carrots last year and gave us a pitiful harvest. I had to completely empty this box in order to eradicate the grass and their roots. This box is 16cubic feet. So it was a huge loss in terms of soil. I had to dump it in the field. Luckily for us, we have a hundred cubic feet or so of fresh compost to replace it with. I still have to putt down some sort of weed barrier before refilling it.

I didn't do all the work alone... I had some help from my pal Julies.

Seems kinda silly that our greenhouse is ready for the first few trays of seedlings and I am wearing my rain boots because there is 3inches of snow on the ground still. At least we are ready I guess!

Our digital thermostat has died, so we need to replace it. If the temp is good for the next couple days then we are going to send the onions outside and free up some room at the grow station. It is pretty crowded in there.

Thanks for reading!