Filling the Green House

Filling the Green House is a lot like moving into a new house.  You have to unpack everything and start re-arranging everything to fit.  Throw in transplanting, mulching, keeping everything watered and you can easily walk out to "Just check the plants" in the morning and find yourself ready to fix lunch by the time you walk back in.  Here's the progression of filling the house...

This is the first year we have configured the green house this way and I already love it.  It is actually two 6' X 10' green houses joined on a base of 2' X 12' timbers.  We get the timbers from my husbands' work.  They are used for scaffolding and once they develop cracks, they have to be discarded--our gain.  The tomatoes are potted in kitty litter buckets that we find at our local re-cycle center free.  I like these better than round because they fit closer and save space.  The three gallon pots were purchased used from a commercial greenhouse.  Everything is mulched with oat straw.  I started doing this three years ago and have cut the watering down 50 to 70 percent.  For some of the smaller pots that are difficult to stuff the straw into, I use the chipped brush that we make using our chipper shredder.

Two more jobs to do here--trellis the tomatoes with cables hanging from the rafters and hopefully get a drip irrigation system in place mostly to take care of watering if I'm gone.  I like to fuss too much to not hand water if I can.