A Third Greenhouse?

 It's fair to say that my concentration has been out in the "wider" smallholding (trees, hedges, etc) or in the workshop (trying to earn a living). But the sunshine yesterday made me long for the garden. I really don't want the bottom end to be a weedy mess again this year so I'm determined to get on top of it now. 

I have decided that the space is perfect for my old greenhouse to go there, there will be enough room at the back to trim the apple trees. 

I like to divide up my areas as much as possible, makes it all feel a bit more manageable.

This greenhouse will just be on oak sleepers on bare earth. Nothing fancy. The last one lasted 10 years and that was on softwood in the same way, so hopefully I'll get ten years from this. I doubt this greenhouse could take another move, some bits look close to breaking. 

Up the side of this greenhouse there will be three raised beds as well, jsut because it's so wet down this bottom corner. 

So a bit of work left (a lot of work really), but I'm already trying to decide what to put in it. It could be for melons and strawberries, and maybe have a plant that needs isolating for seed saving. I was tempted to have it as a netted greenhouse rather than glazed, but I have the glass here so it seems silly to have to buy something more to use it. 

What would you plant in an extra greenhouse?

Second-Hand Greenhouse Build - Part 3 - The Bed!

I finished this a few weeks ago, but it's great to have the video to go with it. The second greenhouse is all ready to go and planted up. 

 In the end I built the beds out of some beams I had had left over from building my brother's porch five years ago. 

Putting Up A Second Hand Greenhouse

Although my "new" greenhouse has been up and running for a week or more now, I finally got around to putting the video together. 

 Hopefully this is a fun video showing me putting up the frame and glazing it.

Greenhouse Upgrade - Building The Base

 I've mentioned this before on the blog, but the little 8x6 greenhouse needed a bit of an upgrade this year. 

The base I put in some 12 years ago, it was just some 8x2 treated softwood I had left over from a job. It made a good temporary base and I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. 

The little greenhouse started it all off in the garden when we first moved here, it wasn't long until I got the bigger greenhouse, but it's always been useful. It's just the last few years it's fallen on a bit of disrepair and missed out on the love, becoming a bit of a dumping ground. As the base rotted out I just used it less and less. 

Mission Creep - Greenhouse Edition...

 I kept standing in that 8ft by 6ft greenhouse and thinking it wasn't really big enough for me. My head touches the top (I know I can raise it up), and I love my bigger greenhouse, the air flow is better and it is the real hub of my veg garden. 

I decided then to have a look at buying a new greenhouse, there's a good range of them out there, but for the size I wanted (12ft by 8ft) they start at about £1,000 for a budget model (with some pretty terrible reviews) and upwards from there. One I'd be happy with was about £2,700, which is so far out of my budget! 

My last one was second hand, so I decided I should look on eBay and other sites. 

Sow It Begins

With the bit of sunshine touching the bare earth here in Herefordshire I decided I should begin to put a few seeds in the dirt. 

Now it takes a lot of control not to go crazy here, but a few things do well really early, and I like to make a couple of gambles with some seeds. 

The peppers, chilli and aubergines it's perfect to get them in now (I've been trying to hold off). The mini cucumber is an experiment to see  if I can grow a couple of really early plants on the windowsill in our bedroom. The children love the mini snack cucumbers I sometimes get from the shops so they've convinced me to double down on those (I think I've bought 4 different varieties). 

Greenhouse Clean up & Plans

We've had such a wet few months I've not done hug amounts outside. But with flashes of sunshine it makes me want to be out in it - I even dried a load of washing on the line today! 

I need to get myself organised if I want a good growing year. The big greenhouse has been a dumping ground. Time to get it cleaned up as this is very much the heart of my annual growing here at the smallholding. Old plants out, all the rubbish gone. 

Should I Get Another (free) Greenhouse?

 I've been offered another greenhouse. 

A friend wants to get rid of the one in his garden, it is an 8ft x 6ft one and about 50 years old. Built solid, but with his lads football passion it worries him too much, so he's replacing it with a shed. The downside is they have no side access to their garden, so the chances are it will have to be dismantled and then resembled at my place. I was hoping we could lift it out in one piece and put it on my trailer! 

My plan is to move my smaller greenhouse (which is this size) as the base has rotted out, then put in two lots of footings to have the three greenhouses in a row together. I think I might just use this greenhouse as a good way to get early strawberries with a large, raised, U shaped bed full of strawberry plants. 

What do you think? Or am I too far down the self sufficiency rabbit hole and my existing two greenhouses and a polytunnel is enough?

Sowing Carrots After School

 All week he'd been on about sowing some carrots in the garden. So Last Thursday night I prepared a bed with extra compost. We marked out 4 rows and we sowed the seed between us. 

He was so happy to do this! Really makes me happy that he's so keen to grow his own food. 

Sea Of Edible Greens In The Greenhouse

 Sorry no posts for the last week or so - It's been a bit mad but I have some really interesting posts coming up to make up for it (and to explain why I've been so busy!). 

ButI thought I'd do a quick post on how much I'm loving my bed in the greenhouse at the moment. 

It's become a beautiful sea of edible greens! 

No-Dig Greenhouse Bed

 So for the last ten years (and before in my old house) I've been gardening in the greenhouse with either growbags or, more recently, builders buckets.

These have worked great and I've had some amazing crops over the years from them, making up my own mixes to plant into. A great old post showing this can be found here!

But since the ducks have been in the tunnel in the winter I've been missing out on growing some winter salads and having some early crops. So until I can see an end to winter poultry restrictions I think it's time to set things up a bit differently. 

First job was to lift the slabs and drag out all the bloody bindweed roots. 

Polytunnel Layout

With the poly tunnel covered it's got me thinking about the layout inside it. 

How would you layout a polytunnel? I normally garden in 30" beds but want this space to be as productive as possible.

6 Gardening Tips for Hot Weather

This is a collaborative post.

This year has made me see some real short comings in my garden lately, mainly in the fact that I’m not that well prepared for really hot weather. With the soaring temperatures we’ve had lately it’s something that we all need to give a bit of thought to.

Provide Some Shade

The greenhouse got up to some crazy temperatures on sunny days. I noticed one day that it was well over 50 degrees C in there. I temporarily shaded it by using an old dust sheet on the south side.

Having some gardening supplies, like pots with water reservoirs would help as well. I think I might even move back to having greenhouse beds rather than growing in buckets in the future.

Pea Shoots Shooting

It's hard not to get excited and carried away at this time of year - I love it! 

So far I've got two types to peas coming up (a mangetout and a soup pea for drying) and the broad beans were just breaking the soil today (I could have been so much earlier with the broad beans if I'd been organised!).

In the greenhouse I've also started two types of beetroot, kohlrabi, red cabbage, sage, globe artichoke (coming up today), red Russian kale (for baby leaf), celeriac, coriander (cilantro for you guys on the other side of the pond) and three different lettuce, I'm planing on sowing some carrots as well and protecting a bed with some plastic to get them earlier. 

Who else has gone mad on sowing seeds already?

I'm planning on transplanting most early crops this year to give me a bit of a head start! 

Also if you've got a spare 60 seconds pop over to this survey and vote for my blog please! It's for best smallholding blog, and although there's no prize it would still be nice to win! Thanks! 

Simple Greenhouse Repair

The door on my large greenhouse drives me wild. 

For the last couple of years I've put up with it dropping as it swings open. This means that you have to lift it up every time you want to close it.

I think we all have things like this, little jobs that would probably only take half an hour to fix and save a lot of annoyances. 

Last year I made the gates for my garden to save me having to fight with the rabbit wire each time I went in there, once I'd done it I couldn't believe I hadn't done it sooner! 

The greenhouse door took a little thinking about but with a small metal bracket bent to suit and a nut and bolt I had it sorted whilst the girls played in the sandpit. A little bit of a bodge but it works. 

It now swings open and shuts easily, no more fighting the greenhouse door. 

What little job did you put off for years and then regret you did once you did it (if that even makes sense!)?

Disappointing Tomatoes This Year

My garden has suffered this year as my attention has been on other projects (and lots of them). But mostly it's done pretty well as I gave it the right amount of love at the right time. 

Not true in the greenhouse this year unfortunately. 

This years plants 

 They plants have limped along and there is a number of factors that are to blame (most could have been prevented by me).

• The nettles behind the greenhouse have formed a screen blocking out a load of light. This has had a massive impact and reduced their growing by loads. - Next year I will keep on top of them (not literary) 
• I didn't feed them enough, last year I fed the plants every other day, for months. This year I kept forgetting and haven't done it so often. -  I still think my homemade food is good, but I need to apply it more than I have.
• My soil mix was good but I don't think the cheap B&Q compost was up to much this year. Anything planted with it hasn't done as well as last year.  - I need to find and stick to a more expensive brand of compost rather than just going for the cheapest and then being disappointed by the results.
• This summer isn't as sunny as last year. - Not much I can do about that one! 

Last years a month earlier

How has everyone else done with tomatoes? Hope you've had a better harvest than me! 

Automatic Watering Systems

On Wednesday I managed to fit a watering system in my large greenhouse.

Drippers going to tomatoes 

 I've had two drip kits sat in the shed for years, in fact they moved with us from our last house. I brought them from a car boot sale for £5 a box and they come with all the fittings that I need, I just had to buy some clips to hold it in place.

£5 car boot buy

 I decided to fit the first kit in the greenhouse with all the tomatoes, hopefully this will save me lots of time in the summer and they'll be watered far more regularly reducing split tomatoes and blossom end rot. Another advantage is I will feel slightly less guilty about getting our neighbours to look after all my plants and livestock, as it'll be one less job to do when we go on holiday. 

Might need to reduce the pressure

The system waters all these plants and I'll have some trays on the large shelf  (to the left-hand side) to water my chillies as well

I now need to find a good quality electronic timer to control the watering system. I'd like to add other systems on to this for my other greenhouse and an area I'm going to make for propagation.

 Anyone have any recommendations on a good reliable timer that can manage multiple watering systems?

Shuttered A Greenhouse Step

Sometimes you do a little job and you wonder why you haven't done it sooner. 

The other Sunday when we were busy concreting, we had a couple of barrow full of concrete left over. I didn't want to waste it (I hate waste as you know) so my brother suggested I shutter a step for the greenhouse. Using half a pallet collar for the sides and a few lengths of batten as posts I quickly knocked up a rough shutter and filled it with concrete. It's not the first time I've made steps though but these were a bit easier!

Shuttered greenhouse step

I left the top tamped to give some grip and tapped around the outside to get rid of some of the air after I filled it up. When I struck the shutter the next day I was quite pleased with my ten minute job, I'm now wondering how I used to open the awkward door on my greenhouse without it! 

It has got me thinking though, we've got lots of concreting jobs coming up, footings, drainage, etc so having somewhere to put left over concrete would be a good idea. I'm going to make some shutters to form some concrete pig troughs and maybe a few other items. 

What would you make shutters for to use up left over concrete?

Old Glasshouse

I thought I'd do a post to make you all dream. 

This old glass house is next to one of the fields I rent and I dream about what I'd do with it if it was mine every time I walk past it! 

 It's beautiful with a brick base and a hardwood timber frame on top. Most of the glass is now gone but you can tell it was a good one and much cared for in it's day. There's even a pit where the boiler used to live to heat it in winter and on cold nights. 

 It's split into two, in the top section you can still see an old grape vine and a large peach tree growing up the one side and the bottom end was apparently used to raise seedlings for the kitchen garden (all for the big house). 

 Some of the metal work in there is amazingly ornate and it's a real shame that it's all rusting away slowly. 

If I had about a year and a large budget I'd love to get this listed old glasshouse back into working order and fill it with plants. 

Don't get me wrong, I still love my two aluminium greenhouses and I'm sure they involve a whole lot less maintenance!

What would you do with an old glasshouse like this?

Greenhouse Clear Out

With the sun shinning I managed to have a bit of time in the garden yesterday to get a few jobs done. My youngest "assistant" has been poorly all day and spent a large chunk of the afternoon sleeping in bed, she's just a bit under the weather with a bad cold and a bit of sickness, but when they're little it hits them hard. 

A little messy

 Me and Ev decided to get some jobs done close to the house (within range of the baby monitor), one of which was to sort out the mess that is my greenhouse. I got all the old tomato plants down and stacked in the burning pile and the buckets of compost taken down the garden and piled up ready for a mammoth raised bed I'm planning. 

 I then swept it out and brought in a few plants I want to have a little extra protection. My Chilean Guavas have put on loads of growth over the summer and it would be a shame to loose them to a hard frost. My fig "cuttings" are now four feet tall and show little embro fruits on them, so I might have a fig or two next year if I'm lucky, I still think it's best to keep these young plants in the greenhouse although I plan to plant some out at some point.

Fig trees over 4ft big now

Spent compost/soil mix ready to make a raised bed. Crocks and rocks in the bucket ready to be reused new year.

Show's how warm it is - Ev spent ages playing with caterpillars all afternoon 

My cuttings and strawberries grown from seed.

If it was colder I would have done all this sooner, but it's been so mild things are just only just starting to die off. I'm starting to feel a little bit more organised in the garden which is a good thing.

A quick question - does everyone else bring their bay trees into the greenhouse to over winter or do you just risk it and leave them out (assuming they're in pots like mine)? How often do you water plants over wintered in a greenhouse - like me when you remember - Or are you more organised?