Greenhouse 2015

2015.01.08: We added a layer of horse manure (about 5cm thickness) and then 5cm of RCW on top of it. It’s to make the soil softer. Because it was as hard as rock since it never rains inside, horse manure is known to be good to lighten clay and the RCW should be good to attract some insects inside the greenhouse even with the lack of surface water.

2015.02.21: To start sowing of plants (from the south, needing more than 20°C of soil temperature to sprout) we made a warm layer with about 25-30cm of horse manure (there are 3 horses 50m away..), on top of it we added plastic trays so that the pots in them can bathe in water. Don’t forget we’re always trying to find lazy methods, even for sowings on hot beds. We don’t know if it will work, since we should normally come and stir the manure often to keep it warm. My friend will instead go every day quickly to add some more manure to keep the air warm.

Au début c’était irrespirable dans la serre, ça fumait!

An asparagus sowed last year held on and has managed to set itself in the soil!

2015.03.03: We made quite a useless thing last time, we remade the warm layer properly, there’s about 60cm to 1m of horse manure, occupying a big part of the space in the greenhouse, so it makes also less volume to heat up, this time the warm layer is made as it should!

2015.03.13: 10 without any visit. The seeds germinated quite well.

And I installed a bed of asparagus, 19 crowns (5 varieties mixed randomly), usually it is said they must be in a sandy soil well drained. Thinking about the history of asparagus, they used to grow in swamps, wet soils. therefore there, they are in a great soil (it didn’t see any human for 20 years!), which is gorged with water during most of the winter! I’m quite confident that they’ll thrive in that place, it’s also well protected from the cold.

2015.03.23-24: My friend watched over the plants and watered them once in a while while I was on holiday. The turnips became quite big, we had to move them outside, no matter what the climate was, they wouldn’t have lasted inside in a small box of 40×40 cm for more than 50 turnips! Hence we planted them just behind the greenhouse, in a place protected from the wind.

Meanwhile tomatoes germinated well in my small indoor greenhouse.

We sowed a lot of things the 23-24, the warm layer is full!

2015.04.07: I went to the greenhouse to transplant my tomatoes, they couldn’t stay in such a tin space anymore, I waited for a date I had by intuition, it turned out to be the right day, nice weather, but more importantly the weather started warming up again! We had between 5-15°C the first week of march, but then again between 0-10°C for the next 3 weeks! I was hesitating a lot, the tomatoes couldn’t bear the lack of space anymore, but I was afraid it would be too cold for the transplant, they couldn’t be put on the warm layer. In the end the weather warmed up just at the perfect last moment.

2015.04.23: It has been very hot for the last 2 weeks, the plants are growing a lot, it’s becomign hard to keep the in the greenhouse. But we’re still waiting a bit more to put them outside, in case there’s a small cold period again!?

2015.05.14: Most of the tomatoes have been put outside now, celeriacs as well, cucumbers and some squashes (giant blue and Turkish gourds).

2015.06.03: Other plants were sowed, cucumbers, peppers re-potted, some tomatoes that weren’t well developed last time are now good to go. And cantaloupes, watermelons, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants are replanted outside.