My greenhouse has been up and running for 2 years so it allows me to grow more plants from seed. When the gardening bug bit me 25 years ago, I would order hundreds of seed each year! I will never be able to physically manage the constant gardening that I enjoyed long ago so many more controls are in place to stop me from completely going overboard with seed buying My main interest in seed buying has turned toward vegetable growing.
We always battle critters in our garden because I have a no kill policy when it comes to critter control as I do believe nature is smarter than me and will generally work out a balance (for the exception of imported Stink bugs and Japanese beetles). We had been losing sunlight in our garden space each year as trees matured so Anthony moved a part of the garden more into the sun which gave us some successes last year in growing crops. I'm a fan of cherry tomatoes and sweet peppers but my neighbor gave me some fun hot peppers that I enjoyed viewing but not eating. Thai peppers are quite ornamental and I will be growing them again this year from collected seed.
It has been fun researching online as to the current best varieties to order based on disease resistance, performance, and taste. I lean toward open pollinated seed (true to seed = allows you to collect the seed annually and replant). Hybridized seed will not come true to seed and you have to purchase seed each year to produce the same crop.
Long ago I gave up growing beans as they are a critter favorite. I'm focusing on veggies that I eat the most often so Squash is top of the list. We attempted several varieties last year. A patio zucchini in the greenhouse which never flowered so I moved it outside and it flowered but we only harvested one and then it became diseased. We tried a baseball sized zucchini and it was a total failure. All fruit rotting before forming. I believe it was too covered up by the volunteer Butternut squash which went nuts and we harvested 25 squash from several plants. I'm going to try Lemon squash and several zucchini again. I had some luck with
Thousandhead Kale that wasn't as huge as described but it was bigger than most so I'll toss that out again this year. I will again try mini watermelon and melon in the sun this year as they were also in the shady section of the garden and did not do well.
I had to put toilet paper collars around all my plants last year when I set them out because something was hacking the stems off! Could have been cutworms or rabbits. Hoping to beat the heat, disease, and the critters!
The variety of cucumber I picked for the greenhouse last year was terrible. It rarely developed any female flowers, which means you don't get any fruit! I was so disappointed because my first year of growing cucumbers in the greenhouse was great success (Burpee Garden Sweet). I'm trying 2 open pollinated varieties; one that self pollinates (Beit Alpha) and one that produces mountains of cucumbers (Suyo Long) in hopes to keep them going from May - December.
Part of growing plants from seed is that you can pick the recommended winners and really see if they are all they claim to be! It's fun experimenting and growing varieties that you have never tried.
I just finished Spring
cleaning out the greenhouse. This Winter I moved most of my plants indoors to save on heating expense (it cost me an extra $200 to run heat in the greenhouse last year). As a precaution I will apply 3 treatments of
BTI to my greenhouse planter box (another exception to the critter control rules). It is a selective bacteria that attacks mainly mosquito, black fly, and gnat larva. Working indoors in a greenhouse is very different than outside as far as insect management.
Cheers to kicking off the Spring growing season!
~Rebecca
