Winter Garden

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Like the weather, the greenhouse has seen some ups and downs this winter. It was the first year I've tried to maintain a number of different projects inside and some of the plans worked better than others. Which is to be expected I guess- it was all experimental to see what would work and what wouldn't, but of course I can't help but feel disappointed at the ones that failed, especially when failure meant the loss of some of the plants.

Radishes got a bit frost nipped

The biggest issue is not being able to maintain consistant temperatures. This greenhouse was designed to be passive- it doesn't have a source of heat other than the sun. It also lacks fans for air movement, and supplimental lighting. Previous attempts to maintain it through the winter with space heaters worked poorly- it proved inefficient and there were issues with mold.  After speaking with a couple of greenhouse experts we came to the conclusion it would work most efficiently as a large cold frame, with a small heated area enclosed in plastic for the handful of tropical plants. The aim was to maintain a fairly consistant cool temperaure but prevent a hard freeze. This works well on a few levels; because the plants are not exposed to much light or heat they aren't encouraged to grow and therefore don't require frequent watering. And without heat and moisture there's less opportunity for mold to take hold.

So back in the fall I brought a number of plants like the hibiscus and olive tree inside the greenhouse and allowed them to acclimatize to the cooler temps and low light naturally. The pergola was covered in clear plastic and small space heater was set to kick in only if the temperature dropped below 5 C. I enstalled a themometer that also indicates a minimum/maximum temp. Other hardier plants like collards and leeks we left in large bins  in the unheated areas and I started some cold crops (rapini, carrots and radishes) in cold frames It all worked wonderfully all through November, December and into January. The hothouse plants were lulled into dormancy and the cool crops were growing slowly but steadily. Sadly I failed to take any photos of  it all when things were at the ideal. 

Then mid January, we had a week of hard freeze with overnight lows in the minus teens, and whether the small heater couldn't keep up or there was some sort of power failure, the temperature at some point hit minus 10 even inside the supposedly heated area. By the time I discovered it, the damage was done and many of the tender tropicals were a wilted mess. Thankfully I have no photos of that either because it was heartbreaking. I trimmed all the dead and damaged leaves and I'm hopeful that most of them will recover eventually but I'm sure I lost a few.

Bay laurels survived but not the spider plant

Surprisingly, the plants in the unheated areas weren't quite as badly damaged and most of them bounced back. I suspect that is because they were in larger planter boxes rather than pots.

I'm still harvesting leeks, and collards, the 2 remaining  sugar beets are looking great, a few radishes have grown big enough to harvest and the carrots are coming along.

I missed the peak on the rapini however- should have harvested it all a few weeks ago!

Now as the days get longer and the sun moves closer I'm faced with another challenge- on bright sunny days the temperature can shoot up to 30 degrees plus! Since it chills off again at night the fluctuation can be quite drastic which is far worse for plants than just cold. It also means the plants require more frequent watering which can lead to mold. When I'm at work I can open the roof vents and turn on the fan but since I 'm only in one day per week currently, I'm not always able to be there to check on things. I'm about ready to seed some early spring greens in the next week or so and I sure hope they can handle the fluctuating temps!

In the meantime I am happy just to have fresh homegrown produce even when it still looks like this outside.

Food forest in winter- not much to see!

 

 

Of course it would be even better if the greenhouse was set up with year round temperature controls and grow lights- then I'd be able to produce things like this lovely pomegranate! This one was grown by my coworker Liz in the CAMH greenhouse! Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's pomegranate!

Hope

The snow has been falling for a week now and although we haven't had the record breaking accumulations of other parts of the province, winter has definitely arrived. With daytime temps hovering near or below freezing, signs of life in the garden are gone. But here in the sunporch things are cozy and warm and the southwestern exposure gives maximum daylight now that that trees are bare. I've been able to overwinter many plants in this space and most of them do quite well. Along with the usual tropical plants I have a cayenne and a golden habanero pepper that are almost 4 years old now and the rosemary is on it's second winter. The chili peppers behave much like a deciduous shrub indoors- they lose all their leaves and end up looking like a bunch of green sticks. But if you look closely you can see new leaves already forming and one last habanero pepper is still hanging in.



There's a couple of new additions to the plant menagerie this winter and they are all volunteers. The avocado sprouted in the compost early last year but got snapped off by a squirrel. I saved it just in case and am happy to report it has all new growth. I also have a lemon tree! A number of lemon pips sprouted in the worm bin before I found out that the worms don't like citrus; I saved a few and this one seems very happy in the window. But the biggest surprise is the tomato seedlings! Likely another gift from a squirrel, a whole bunch of them sprouted once I brought the planter indoors. I didn't have the heart to rip them all out but I thinned their numbers to two thinking they would probably not survive in any case. Well apparently they have every intention of sticking around. We are two days till the solstice which means they are getting a scant 9 hours of daylight, yet they don't appear to be overly light deprived. The stems are fairly sturdy and well leafed and they are large enough now to be transplanted into their own pots. Which maybe an issue since all of my potting soil is currently outside frozen solid. I may have to purchase some if I hope to keep them growing but at least I have lots of worm castings from the worm farm. How hilarious would it be to have my own 'hothouse' tomatoes in early spring?

Having living green things around through the long winter months is so important in so many ways. They act as mini air filtres, clearing the air of it's buildup of CO2 and pumping out fresh oxygen. They also add humidity to the hot dry air pumped out by the furnace. But it's their symbol of life in the dark days of winter that helps the most; knowing that life survives even then gives hope that spring will come again and we will feast on warmth and sushine.