We’ve had 2 greenhouses recently damaged by the severe cold weather and wind, so we are recovering those greenhouses with new plastic skins. This is a very big task and requires a lot of extra hands to help. These photos are from a different greenhouse recovering project, because the wind yesterday was so severe I couldn’t even begin to take pictures as we were working along, but these photos will show you the process and then you can leave it to your imagination as to how we managed the task.
Yesterday, we had to put a new skin on our Woodstove Greenhouse (named because we heat it with a wood pellet stove). The weather was supposed to be calm and pretty warm, which is always a requirement for these kinds of projects, however, it was not calm at all! We woke up to 15 mph winds and 35 mph gusts. Normally, that would be cause to nix the task to another better day, but we are under the gun right now, running out of space for newly transplanted plants, as all the other greenhouses are full by now. We had 11 people to help cover a greenhouse that we can normally do with 4 people, and still it was a horrible, horrible project due to the severe wind. And…nearly all of us were very experienced at doing this and still it was beyond difficult!
Imagine 2 pieces of 6ml plastic 50′ by 45′ that have to be pulled over a 16′ tall greenhouse, held in place and secured with those kinds of winds. It was like trying to wrestle a giant kite determined to fly to Kansas and take all of us with it holding on frantically to the plastic. The wind and plastic very nearly won this battle!! The next greenhouse we have to recover is the Farm Stand and it is 96 feet long! We will definitely NOT do that one on a windy day!!
We were successful, with only a few small punctures in the new plastic that had to be patched (bummer, as we usually accomplish recovering with no tears or punctures). The house is inflated and looks really good, especially considering we were doubtful we would be able to successfully get it done at all. Today, I’ll finish putting the shade cloth on the inside ceiling back in place, and plants will start to go in this house this afternoon. Sometimes luck is with you and we go lucky, and we owe our crew and extra help a huge thank you for working on this. It was brutal.
Today, Chris heads to Santa Fe with our first New Mexico order delivery of 2021. Lots of herbs and heritage/heirloom vegetable plants are going to our wholesale Garden Center and Nursery customers by now, which is great, and we are always in gratitude for these customers and the business they give us.
Remember a couple of posts back I showed you the first newly sprouting vegetable crops? Well, look at them now! They look beautiful and the thought of eating freshly grown vegetables just makes your mouth water in anticipation. Swiss Chard, Beets, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Spinach and more!
The flower baskets are coming along nicely and will look lovely by the time we open our retail Farm Stand store on April 10th this spring.
These Thumbergia vines are gorgeous too and will be really nice by opening day.
Our first pepper crop is being transplanted from plugs to 2.5″ pots now. There are benches and benches of peppers, or will be by the end of the work day today. In a couple of weeks, these will have grown enough to be ready for sale.
Our patience is being tested yet again by the weather as we wait for our bareroot strawberries to arrive. They were supposed to be here on February 3rd, so that we could get them planted and have them ready for sale when the Farm Stand store opens in April. The fruit grower we get the bareroots from has not been able to ship them yet due to the polar freeze that has been hitting so much of North America. We are keeping fingers crossed that they will show up this week.
Growing strawberries from seed is a very lengthy process, and takes much more time and space than we have, so we get our strawberries from a fruit grower who sends them to us as 1 year old bare roots. We grow these out over a couple of months time and when they are growing beautifully, we will have them for sale to our retail customers.
From back left going forward in a circle: Red Shiso, Rosemary, Lemon Verbena, Mint, Gotu Kola, Vietnamese Coriander
We are growing so many different kinds of herbs that it is going to make your head spin. Our whole bodies are spinning right now as we work to get all of these great plant varieties growing and ready for you to enjoy shopping this spring. You could plant a collection of herbs or fruits and vegetables for your own porch, just like a collection of container herbs can be found growing on my back porch every growing season from spring through fall.
Shiso( this year we will offer Britton Shiso) is a tasty salad herb and is used in the fragrance and perfume industries as a natural fixative to keep all the fragrances stable in their blends. I think Britton Shiso is so beautiful with it’s green leaves on the top and purple undersides and pale lavender flowers.
We grow a bunch of different varieties of Rosemary, both creeping and upright choices, and each and every one of them is beautiful, delicious and a strong medicinal herb. Remember that you can use every kind of Rosemary equally, so choose the variety that you best like when making your choice of which one you want to grow. They all taste the same. They all have equal medicinal benefits, and they all make a soothing bath or foot soak for sore achy muscles!
Lemon Verbena has some of the strongest flavor and fragrance of all the lemony herbs. The leaves are considered supreme for making herb tea or other lemon flavored beverages. The flowers have a very floral sweet fragrance and are wonderful in salads, used to make sachets or just enjoy this plant growing in a pot in your kitchen.
It seems like there are a zillion different kinds of mint you could choose to grow. Many kinds of peppermint, spearmint, and fruity mints. We grow 19 different varieties of mint, including our own selection called Chocolate Swirl Peppermint (named by Kaila). Mints are quite diverse for cooking and can be used in baking (like cookies), Middle Eastern dishes, herb butters and cream cheese spreads, for tea and to give lemonade a extra special twist…the ways you can cook with mint are truly endless. Use them to make your own household cleaning products. Mints have many different medicinal benefits to take advantage of. A cup of mint tea is one of the most soothing things you can do for yourself when you have an upset stomach.
Gotu Kola is famous for it’s ability to support good memory and to nurture skin health. The leaves are tasty eaten as fresh greens on sandwiches like pita pockets or in salads…we like them on tacos with cilantro in place of lettuce. You can use Gotu Kola as a tea or make it into a tincture. It is a tender perennial, so it isn’t cold tolerant AT ALL. Grow this herb indoors during the cold months of the year and put it in a shady location on your porch when the weather is warm and settled. Don’t forget that Gotu Kola is considered a favorite food of elephants and we all know that elephants have very long and good memories!
Vietnamese Coriander is another tender herb that must be protected from cold temperatures. It makes a lovely indoor herb and will also do well in a shady location outdoors when the weather is hot. This is quite a unique herb for flavor and used a lot in Asian cooking. Add it to soups, stir fry or as a garnish to a bowl of noodles and vegetables.
I’ll be back again next week with more green thoughts!
