The Laughable Greenhouse

Some day, when I'm a big girl, I'll have a real greenhouse. Right now I have a rather pathetic version, it's like going to get a mountain bike and ending up with a tricycle. I always thought that a greenhouse was a basic thing to have if you had a large garden. I really looked forward to having a greenhouse. I love being around green, growing things, if you don't count that stuff that occasionally shows up in the fridge on some forgotten baloney sandwich.

But The DaM Farm didn't have a greenhouse and we just casually assumed it would be one of our first projects. But then we went through our first winter and insulation and good windows shoved the greenhouse right off the list of things to do soon. It fell with a plunk to the bottom of the discarded wish pit and sits there still. Because, sure enough, every summer, something else need to be done first, a leaky roof, the chicken coop, wood furnace replacement and so forth and so on until I will be too old to plant anything anyway.

So I, in true homesteading spirit, decided to 'make do'. I looked at making cold frames from old windows and wood. I considered getting big old tires, stuffing 'em with straw and covering them with plastic. Then a local hardware store was selling these 'mini greenhouses' for less than 1/2 price - probably because no-one in their right mind would buy one unless they could get it for practically free. We brought it home 'ready to be assembled' and P, pre-teen son at the time, and I went about assembling it. It may have been ready to be assembled but we were far from being ready to assemble it. A couple of caught fingers, a few snagged zippers, a dozen ill fitting parts and a whole lot of muttered curses under my breath later it was done. P looked at it and said "Man, that's embarrassing." And it was. Well, the neighbours would get a good giggle anyway. Hopefully, none of them would drive off the road as they howled with laughter.

Much to my surprise, it does the job beautifully. I started plants in it just at the beginning of May. Even though we had some really cold nights, a touch of frost even, that little greenhouse wannabe kept everything warm and alive. As well, it is absolutely surprising how much that glorified plastic bag can hold. Right now I have twelve tomato plants in 6 inch pots and at least 6 large flats holding herbs, cukes and squashes not to mention a whole bunch of containers salvaged from the grocery store growing plants as well. There's six green peppers in there, too. It's all I need to get my garden off to a good start. After everything is planted in the garden, I have found it makes a great drying rack for my herbs. And I have giggling neighbours, what more could a person want?