At a Garden club meeting, I was sitting behind two women discussing a misfortune concerning the child of one of them.
“I just went into my greenhouse and looked at my (lowers until I could bear it,” she said. I’ve done the same thing, and so have all who can take refuge in their greenhouse from anything from a bad report card to a blizzard.
I needn’t tell anyone what a greenhouse does for plants. Gardening is pitting our wits against natural forces.
We’re trying to bend Nature to our will. Or we’re challenging her to do her worst with her array of weapons, everything from insects to hurricanes. Sometimes, it seems we have little to work with against Nature; then, we get a greenhouse.
Mark Twain said that everybody talked about the weather, but nobody did anything about it. I did something about the last blizzard that raged around my greenhouse; there, snug and warm, I planted flat after flat of vegetables.
I made unladylike noises at the storm as I tended to my tiny charges. It was a good answer to the blizzard financially, too, for I found a ready market for my plants two months later.
Providing Refuge For Birds and Pets
There is joy in giving plants what they need. I get hurt when I see an African violet trying to blossom in dry air. I glory in the upward thrust of sweet peas that have everything their way.
My lemon tree no longer looked sick on the living room window ledge but spread great branches over the greenhouse door, bloomed, bore fruit, and lived as Nature intended.
My greenhouse also solves problems for birds and pets in need of refuge. A bluebird arriving just ahead of a late snowstorm huddled against the fireplace chimney for warmth and ignored my food offerings because he preferred live bugs.
I gently placed him on a branch of the avocado tree in the greenhouse and supplied him with mealworms from the pet shop. They kept his appetite until he noticed the hugs that I hoped weren’t found.
My grandson lost his chameleon, John, in the greenhouse. How could he or I know that John was a lady?
In due course, seven little chameleons joined their mother, darting among plants, catching bugs for their keep.
My next visitor was a baby robin that had fallen from its nest. That little chap turned out to be a comedian, friendly as a puppy and as full of tricks. He grew fat and sleek, for a hug or worm never escaped his bright eyes.
Experimentation in Gardening
Gardeners are born with an abnormal hump of curiosity. Is it true that tomatoes grown cold become stockier plants that blossom earlier and hear better?
I put three little tomato plants where the temperature falls to 47° Fahrenheit at night.
They made compact little plants compared to those in the warmer conventional tomato-growing places. Blossoms appeared about ten days earlier.
These cool-grown plants took better transplanting and bore their first fruit 19 days earlier than the coddled 70° degrees Fahrenheit plants. I was satisfied.
Is it true that the last seeds in the packet to germinate often make the strongest plants?
I started my vegetable seeds—tomatoes, peppers, cabbage—in cottage cheese boxes with holes punched in the bottom for drainage. I filled them with vermiculite, dampened them, and sowed the seeds.
Then, I put the boxes on a fluorescent light in the greenhouse for gentle bottom heat to hasten germination.
As they sprouted, I removed them one by one, potting them in flats. Finally, the last seedling popped up. These I potted separately, labeling them L.L., meaning “last of the lot.”
They made larger, stronger plants with the same growing conditions as the others.
Benefits of a Cool Greenhouse
I favor a cool greenhouse, about 45° at night. My sweet peas, fuchsias, bulbs, and vegetable plants do well there.
However, African violets, gloxinias, and other warm-temperature plants can be accommodated even in a cool greenhouse.
Heat rises, and if you check the thermometers, you’ll find that 4′ to 5′ feet above the bench, it’s 8° to 10° degrees Fahrenheit warmer.
You can also increase the heat by strategically placing fluorescent lights and using an incandescent bulb or two. And you’ll find that plants that grow where humidity is high (and it is higher when the temperature is low) are not so fussy about the heat.
Heating costs are lower in a cool greenhouse. I found, to my surprise, that I doubled my heating bill when I let the heat go from 45° to 58° degrees Fahrenheit at night.
Insects are less apt to be a problem in a cool greenhouse. The pests in mine are now controlled entirely by eight chameleons and any visiting birds.
Building Greenhouse Onto The House
I have found advantages to building the greenhouse right onto the house.
The house heating plant heats the greenhouse, thus making a separate unit unnecessary. And I can step in from the living room without bundling up and going out in the cold.
When the children are a problem, when a passing dog uproots my rose cuttings, when one more thing drives me out of my mind, I go to my greenhouse to get back my sense of proportion.
44659 by Dorothy Schroeder