By: thewanderingempath
gardening, Uncategorized, ,

Question of the Day: “What do I love about my new greenhouse?”

As I have discussed before, I am in the midst of tending to my first real garden. My husband created nine garden boxes and threaded together my vegetable and flower labyrinth. Last week the plants really started exploding, and everywhere I look, I see tall green stalks and fat, ripening fruit and veg.

We are also getting a ton comments from our neighbors as well as people just driving down the street. The pull over to the side of the road and comment on how much work we have done in such a short amount of time. But it’s the greenhouse that really has them excited.

After viewing a post on Instagram, I asked my husband if there was anyway he could build me a greenhouse out of old windows. Since he always loves a challenge, he set about laying out what this could look like. Within a few weeks, he found a woman who was selling 25 farmhouse windows for $100, and he drove the hour to her place to get them.

For the first few weeks of our summer, we all (including the boys) worked on putting it together. The first time he showed me the layout of the greenhouse, I felt it was too short. He sprayed white chalk on the ground to form the rectangle that would become the structure.

“This is more like a greencloset than a greenhouse,” I said dryly.

“You want it bigger than this?” He asked.

“Yes,” I responded. “Of course I do.” And because he loves me with an unwavering and undying loyalty I have yet to understand, he went back to measuring and said he could add more windows.

“Here,” he said as he added another chalk line to the area. “Is this big enough, my Lord?” He always does a sarcastic tone and a drawn out English accent that draws out the vowels when he does this. I made sure to answer him in the most respectable way possible

“Why, yes, serf. This will do.” He didn’t laugh in return, but in only a few weeks, the greenhouse was started. He laid the floor, and the boys and I helped clean and prep all of the windows. It was a lot of work, but it is almost done.

I truly am not even sure what I am going to put in my greenhouse when it is done. I figure I can use it as a go between after we start our seeds in the basement. This year we moved the plants too early and their delicate roots were blasted by the strength of the sun. We lost many of them, and I would like them to be a bit hardier than they were this year.

Maria, my garden sage from down the street who owns a “farmette” asked me what I was going to do with my wonderfully sized greenhouse. When I told her I wasn’t entirely sure, she said, “Well, don’t put any plants you really care about in it for the first year because you will probably kill them.”

I guess we shall see.

Love and Light, my garden friends!

Here are some photos from before and during. Hopefully, we will have the roof on after this major heatwave that is hitting the Northeast and I will upload the finished project.