It is starting to feel like spring and spring has certainly arrived in my greenhouse. Recently we have had some sunshine and outside temperatures in the 50's. In the greenhouse, I've been opening two of my windows and am able to keep it from getting much warmer than 70 degrees which is a great temp for my greens and for comfortably spending time with my plants.
I am excited that I have most of my garden plants started and doing well on a shelf in my greenhouse. I have peppers, tomatoes, basil, stevia, eggplant, kale, chard, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli going and an experimental pot of snow peas which is already looking like it will start producing some soon.
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| Basil and Stevia |
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| Starts for my garden |
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| Snow peas started in January |
I also have been dabbling a little in my garden too with a row of beets, green onions, mixed greens and a variety of small head lettuce. The last couple of years, I have taken some old storm windows and put them over my newly planted seeds with good results. I find that things usually germinate quickly, don't get washed around in early rains and can get established enough so that the birds won't peck off all the tops before the secondary leaves emerge.
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| Storm Windows over Seedlings |
The NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) hydroponic system is still producing awesome spinach and the chard, kale and collards are almost too big for it. I had to add some of the blue painter's tape over the net pots to keep them from toppling over. I have recently added some small head lettuce to one of the gutters and am planning on putting in some basil and a couple of cucumber plants that I will trellis up the far end of my greenhouse. The chard and kale are now bolting. Knowing that these plants usually don't flower until the following spring leads me to believe that my "somewhat" warm greenhouse was not able to fool them into believing that winter hadn't come yet. As for the collards, they are huge but, as of late, I have been having a tough time keeping them happy. On hot days they have been wilting and are also showing signs of nutrient deficiency. I have recently replaced the water and nutrients in the system and they seem to be doing better.
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| Hydroponic Collards and Spinach |
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| Spinach |
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| Collards. Note the nutrient deficiency but new center growth looks better |
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| Kale |
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| Newly Planted Hydroponic Head Lettuce |
After this episode, I realized that I needed to get a little more high tech to manage the hydroponics so I bought a ppm (parts per million) meter to measure the amount of nutrients in the water. This allows me to have enough for optimum growth but not too much so that I will burn the roots. I also got some solutions to raise and lower the pH of the system as needed. I think that the collards were probably sensitive to having the solution a little too acidic which can prevent nutrient uptake.
I am also realizing that algae in my gutters is probably going to be a problem at some point. Most NFT systems don't allow sunlight to reach the solution like mine does. I have seen people use pvc pipe and drill holes in it to hold the net pots. I have also seen systems built with pvc post covers which are meant to cover a 4x4 post. When starting my system, I was hoping that the plants would grow quick enough to shade the gutters and prevent an overgrowth of algae. This has proven somewhat true. The main reason for using gutters was for the flexibility of plant spacing. I figured I could do like I do in the garden and thin plants as they got too big, allowing more space for the others. I have found this to be difficult as the roots become so intertwined that you risk damaging the plants through this process.
Yes. I was warned. Bugs will be a problem in any greenhouse. And I was in such a hurry in the fall to put some greenery into my greenhouse for my winter sanity, that I brought in all my outside herb pots, potted some cold and weary plants from the garden such as a tomatillo, pepper and eggplant. To make things worse, I got the bright idea of having a worm bin for compost tea and worm castings for my plants. In doing so, I needed worms quickly so I dug up some from my compost pile. Yes, I got worms and a whole lot more. I began noticing centipedes, earwigs, all kinds of maggots and grubs. After a short warm spell, I began to see that there were all kinds of flies and gnats coming out of the bin. The system uses stacking bins, so I eventually removed the lower ones with all the mystery creatures in them and this seems to have eliminated most of the problem.
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| My Nesting Worm Bins |
The bug story does not end here as I have found aphids on my spinach and kale plants. So far, it's not too out of hand but I've been keeping an eye on them daily watching for new infestations as they break out. I have also been spending a lot of time with my magnifying glass looking for eggs, etc on all the plants in my greenhouse. I have since learned that aphids give birth to live young and do not lay eggs. Each mature aphid can give birth to up to 12 aphids per day!
However what I noticed in this process was quite surprising - predatory insects feeding on the aphids! I love this as I am a firm believer that nature will eventually come into balance if given time. I carefully inspected the tray of spinach that I planted last fall expecting to find a lot of plants infested with aphids yet only one plant was infested with aphids and the rest were clean. The infested plant had some eggs on it and several predatory midge larva on it. I was seeing some of these midges on my hydroponic spinach as well as some lacewing larva. So, in retrospect, maybe the compost pile and other plants being introduced into my greenhouse have helped create a "somewhat" balanced ecosystem setting the stage for summer. We'll see. I will post further on this later as I hope to have the same symbiotic balance in my vegetable garden outside.
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| Predatory Midge Larvae |
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| Lacewing Larvae |
So what's next for the greenhouse? I am planning another hydroponic system for several tomatoes and peppers. We'll see if we can get a ripe tomato and pepper before the 4th of July. I will also be struggling with heat management as I'm not sure what the temps will be on a 95 degrees summer day. Wish me luck.
Have a great spring and thanks for reading!
