The past few years, my greenhouse has looked a bit like this in March.
A diverse offering every week is wonderful, but I've found that trying to keep both late-winter lettuce and early-season tomatoes going in the same house gets to be a pain in the neck. It ends up never being warm enough for the tomatoes, and usually too warm for lettuces' liking. Not to mention it gets a bit crowded in there.
So this March, it's all tomatoes. Twice as many tomatoes. Both Sungold cherry tomatoes (because I think some of you might hurt me if I ever stopped growing those), and 'Early Girl' slicing tomatoes. If all goes well, in about two months we'll be feasting on early 'maters. "Early" being a relative term. I can usually plant the greenhouse tomatoes out about two weeks earlier than this, but it's been a cloudy, chilly month, and no sun means no warmth in a passive solar greenhouse. It's still a good month or more earlier than field tomatoes, though. In the meantime, we'll be lettuce-less here for a few weeks until the first outdoor plantings are ready to cut, but I think it's a small price to pay for a sooner summer!
In other news, it's driving me crazy that our harvests are getting so slim. Trust me, we're working like dogs to fill out every available inch of the place with good things to eat. Nature is not cooperating. As I mentioned, it's been a cloudy, chilly month. Our average temperatures by now should be around a high of 60, with nights bottoming out around 40. Most days we're lucky to see 50's by late afternoon, and it is still freezing almost every night. Most plant growth actually happens at night, in the dark, and when it freezes every night, the plants don't grow - they just maintain. I can count the number of sunny days in the past few weeks on one hand. As a result, all plant growth, in the greenhouse and in the field, is moving at a snail's pace. Even the asparagus, one of the earliest spring treats, still hasn't popped up. It'll warm up eventually...one of these weeks...and in the meantime, let's all keep our fingers crossed for some much-needed sunshine!
A diverse offering every week is wonderful, but I've found that trying to keep both late-winter lettuce and early-season tomatoes going in the same house gets to be a pain in the neck. It ends up never being warm enough for the tomatoes, and usually too warm for lettuces' liking. Not to mention it gets a bit crowded in there.
So this March, it's all tomatoes. Twice as many tomatoes. Both Sungold cherry tomatoes (because I think some of you might hurt me if I ever stopped growing those), and 'Early Girl' slicing tomatoes. If all goes well, in about two months we'll be feasting on early 'maters. "Early" being a relative term. I can usually plant the greenhouse tomatoes out about two weeks earlier than this, but it's been a cloudy, chilly month, and no sun means no warmth in a passive solar greenhouse. It's still a good month or more earlier than field tomatoes, though. In the meantime, we'll be lettuce-less here for a few weeks until the first outdoor plantings are ready to cut, but I think it's a small price to pay for a sooner summer!
In other news, it's driving me crazy that our harvests are getting so slim. Trust me, we're working like dogs to fill out every available inch of the place with good things to eat. Nature is not cooperating. As I mentioned, it's been a cloudy, chilly month. Our average temperatures by now should be around a high of 60, with nights bottoming out around 40. Most days we're lucky to see 50's by late afternoon, and it is still freezing almost every night. Most plant growth actually happens at night, in the dark, and when it freezes every night, the plants don't grow - they just maintain. I can count the number of sunny days in the past few weeks on one hand. As a result, all plant growth, in the greenhouse and in the field, is moving at a snail's pace. Even the asparagus, one of the earliest spring treats, still hasn't popped up. It'll warm up eventually...one of these weeks...and in the meantime, let's all keep our fingers crossed for some much-needed sunshine!
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