It’s the beginning of March! Spring is now less than 20 days away. Lets have a look inside the winter greenhouse in its final days before we make the changeover to our spring seedlings and the official start to this years growing season.
We start many of our seeds that need a longer growing period indoors, in February and by the time Mid March rolls around, we need to start moving our seedlings out here into the four season greenhouse to make more room for seed starting inside the house.
We’ve already started the process of freezing out and killing the greenhouse, which helps to kill any possible insects that might be hanging around in here. This is a necessary step before moving seedlings into the greenhouse for this seasons crops.
The temperature in here got down to about -5 Celsius last week when we had outside temperatures of around -30 Celsius. We allowed things to freeze up during that period intentionally.
Normally we’d have a fire roaring in the woodstove here when temperatures get down that low, but with it possibly being the last real freeze up this winter, we let it go.
The lettuce……. well, the lettuce is definitely done for this years winter crop. It went quite well with moving seedlings in here last September. It’s all over now though. It was tasty while it lasted.
Here’s the Kale. Kale is a cold hardy plant, so those below freezing temps didn’t really affect the plants much. We’ve been munching on this stuff all winter in salads, tacos, all kinds of stuff. And of course, caddis has been enjoying her kale bones too.
The Swiss chard is still hanging on as well. This was our first winter growing Swiss chard in here, so now we know it’s another leafy crop we can grow in here over the winter months going forward.
Our celery is very picked over now. It also managed to hang on through those sub zero temps last week although its looking a little weak at this point. Amanda and I as well as our rabbits and chickens have been enjoying this stuff all winter long, so they’ll be a little disappointed when the fresh greens stop appearing in their homes over the next few days.
The tomato plants, Well, clearly these are dead now. There’s a few little fruits hanging on to the vines, but overall, these are completely done. It would have been the first or second week of February that we harvested the last of the tomatoes that we actually ate.
And finally the pepper plants. Now, had I been smart about it, I would have made sure to harvest these last few peppers before the cold snap, but that didn’t happen. These will still be fine for saving the seeds, I’ll toss the leftovers in with the chickens after I get the seeds out of them and if they’re interested, they can gobble them up.
I’ll salvage what I can from the kale and Swiss chard today, and it’s now time to get the greenhouse ready for spring seedlings. There are a few things that I think are important steps to preparing for the new growing season.
This whole place needs to be cleaned up now. I’ve already started by removing the old plants and what not. Now it’s time to thoroughly clean the interior of the greenhouse, removing any debris and dirt. All these nasty cobwebs and stuff get cleaned up and removed. These could easily be holding various insects that might be waiting to munch on your new spring seedlings. I’ll even go so far as to spray all the of walls and windows in here down with a peroxide and water mixture to clean things up even further. These are little eggs of some sort. Beneficial or not, I don’t know, so they gotta go.
As we say goodbye to the last remnants of winter, we eagerly look forward to the start of the new growing season. Our winter greenhouse has served us well, providing us with a variety of leafy greens, celery, and even some tomatoes and peppers. Now, the greenhouse is clean and ready for the spring seedlings that will soon move in. These few important steps ensure that our new crops will thrive and be free from any pests or diseases that may have been lurking in the previous season. With a little bit of effort and care, we are excited to see what this year’s growing season will bring.