Greenhouse and mumblings...

It's been a while now that I've been away from the blog. I needed a break. Quite a few challenges have come to pass, and while I wrote about some, I chose to just go inside myself to deal with several others. I'm a writer, and I usually process challenges with the written word, but sometimes there are no words, and when that happens to me, I take it as a sign I need to engage my other skills to tackle the challenge in front of me.

So, what's happening? It's growing season, so it's all about the greenhouse, and the composting efforts around here.

First a note about the composting here. We had one very large pile, which did incredibly well last fall. It restarted in the spring, and we actually turned out some nice, rich, sweet smelling compost. I was impressed. We ended up with far more compost materials than one pile could handle, so we opted to take down the smaller bin, and set up three piles on the side of the house; "almost done", "getting there" and "just getting started". It has proven the best solution. It also gave us the motivation to clear the 'crap' from the side yard, as well.

Onto the greenhouse occupants...

A couple of weeks ago we moved the starts and seedlings into the greenhouse, along with a few more mature plantings. Everything is thriving. Have I said how much I love the greenhouse? I love it. I really, really do.

How are the greenhouse occupants doing? Quite well, I must say. Take a look for yourself.

We grew everything outdoors last year, from seed in many cases, and things did okay, but not great. I can already see the big difference the greenhouse makes in our environment. We are still experiencing overnight lows near freezing, but a small heater in the greenhouse keeps our most tender seedlings happy, and we have had no casualties thus far. Fingers crossed it continues.

We have several things growing. Peas, carrots, tomatoes, peppers (three different kinds), lettuces, cilantro, corn, strawberries, blueberries, marigolds, oregano and basil. Once all but the tomatoes move to the outside planter boxes, we will transfer our tomato starts to bigger buckets, and the greenhouse will be dedicated to tomatoes, only.

I'm excited about this year's growing season.

Next project; more shelf space in the greenhouse.