For the dedicated gardener in the northern hemisphere, the growing season is never early enough or long enough. With access to a well situated greenhouse we can begin gardening in early spring long before the nightly temperatures will allow us to start planting outside. Warm weather plants can be started indoors and moved into the greenhouse as evening temperatures permit, finally taking up permanent homes in the greenhouse soil. Other seeds can be started in the greenhouse for transplants that will eventually move outdoors, harden off and be planted in our gardens. What a delightful thing to be able to get one’s hands “in the dirt” so early in the year.

When the early summer weather doesn’t cooperate with our plans to plant, we can still start things in the greenhouse and make use of its heat retaining qualities to grow our transplants successfully and set them out in the garden as the seasonal temperatures become more reliable. As early summer temperatures have cooled over the past few years, many people have begun starting beans and corn as greenhouse transplants, in spite of cool weather that would prevent these seeds from sprouting outside. These warm weather transplants can then be set out in the garden as night temperatures warm.

Later in the year, the greenhouse supports extending the growing season well into the fall. Last year final tomatoes were picked off plants in November.

Even on the coldest of nights in the fall, the greenhouse retains the day’s heat, keeping it several degrees warmer than the temperatures outside and making it a lovely place to be “outside in the garden”, while indoors. This extra bit of protection also provides a space to overwinter plants that would otherwise die of exposure outside. By the time this article reaches print, March plantings in the greenhouse will already have started beginning a whole new year of growing.

Come on down to the Community Greenhouse at the school grounds and see what we are up to. New members are always welcome.