Category: Garden

The garden season actually started in our caravan by sowing tomatoes and peppers middle of April. This was around the same time we found our 4 geese a new home, so the greenhouse came free again. The geese had built a nest and started to lay eggs.

At this point the gander became very aggressive. Since the geese did not stay inside there fence and we have children playing outside, the geese had to go. The geese had picked on everything growing in the greenhouse. I had replanted welsh onion from the garden to the greenhouse, so I would be able to harvest some of there greens, or some onion over winter, but that was all gone. The only thing surviving was some lamb’s lettuce in a spot where the geese could not reach. It already started to flower, so we did not eat it.

Next thing up was preparing the greenhouse for the new garden season. I had planned to take out some planters, but I did not. We only repositioned the planters already in the greenhouse and later on actually added some mortar buckets. We gave all planters a nice layer of compost and some mulch and the greenhouse was ready for the new season.

I was very eager to start the garden season, so I sowed some peas, carrots, red beets, Asian salad and lettuce in two of the wooden planters. The peas and Asian salad where quick to sprout.

The carrots and red beets did sprout, but did not really grow the entire season. By the time I harvested them in the fall, they looked like this.

Beginning of Mai we prepared soil blocks and sowed some corn, lettuce, flowers, etc., so by the end of Mai we had some nice seedlings in the greenhouse waiting to get planted.

At this time we also transferred the tomatoes and peppers to the greenhouse. We planted some of the tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse directly and the plants that where left, we planted in small plant pots to transfer outside as soon as the wetter allows for it.

Middle of June it looked kind of nice in the greenhouse with peas ready for harvest and lettuce and Asian salad to harvest from every few days.

We even got a volunteer tomato plant which was a lot bigger as the tomato plants I started from seed in our caravan.

I also had planted a potato in one of the mortar buckets to see if I could get an earlier potato harvest this way. Middle of June it had put on some flowers.

By the time middle of July came the foliage just became very long and fell over and I was curious how the potatoes in the ground did, so I harvested the potatoes. This only gave two hands full of medium size potatoes and in the mean time I had already harvested potatoes outside, so planting potatoes in the greenhouse does not give me an advantage. I used the space that came free to sow spring onions.

By the end of June we started to have some problems with pests. A lot of plants started to get holes in there leafs, or leafs are eaten away entirely. One of the easier pests we found was this green caterpillar.

Later on we also found a lot of brownish caterpillars, which hid on top of the soil during the day, so we spend quite some time searching for those to contain the damage they where causing.

Due to the ratter chilly and wet wetter conditions I sometimes left the greenhouse closed, which was good for the watermelon and the sugar melon we also planted somewhere in June. Problematic was that this caused a high humidity, which caused blight at the tomato plants. As soon as we noticed that, we started opening both doors in the greenhouse to create airflow, regardless the wetter.

We also took all of the foliage of the plants that was contaminated and where able to stop the blight from spreading further this way. The first tomatoes where just starting to ripen and after we got the blight problem solved we where able to have a nice tomato harvest. I even tried to make some tomato powder, since at some point we had more tomatoes as we where eating trough.

Going on about the cucumbers, they had a very slow start, but in the end provided us with some nice cucumbers for fresh eating. I think the slow start was because they where planted to shady at the left wall of the greenhouse. Outside there are some willow trees which grow its branches partly over the roof of the greenhouse, causing a lot of shade at that side of the greenhouse. Since these willow trees are in need of a “haircut” this will be no problem next year.

Other than that I have been reading about how to take care of cucumber plants. Apparently they only have life in the (if I remember correctly) first 40 to 50 cm of the growing point and it is best to take of all of the foliage further back from that point. These leaves start to die off and attract disease and pests and can not help the plant anymore. While doing this kind of maintenance I actually noticed some caterpillars on cucumber leaves and I was very happy I took the time to do this.

Obviously I did the same with the pickling cucumbers which started at a much better position and did great from the start. The pickling cucumbers where planted at the right from the door and had the sunniest spot of the entire greenhouse.

They did so well that I was able to experiment with some pickling, since we love to eat pickled cucumbers. I had tried pickling cucumbers in the past and it was a total fail, but I had been informing myself and found a way to keep the pickling cucumbers somewhat crispy. The only problem left is that the pickled cucumbers are to acidic for our taste. At least for the canned once. I also made some with a different brine that does not need canning, but gets stored in the refrigerator in stead. These are ok, but mostly the home made pickles will be used in salads, where the acidity gets lost in the mix of ingredients and dressing.

Of course I also grew basil again. I planted them divided between the tomatoes and pepper plants. They did well and I made a nice amount of pesto.

I also grew the celery variety for the stalks. I grew some for the first time last year, since I did not have any luck with growing celeriac in the past. I liked the celery very much for adding to soups and grew more of it this year. I dried the leaves for seasoning and the kid’s cut the stalks into pieces, which we froze. They will be added to soups over winter.

As for watermelon and sugar melon, I can not help myself but trying over and over again every year. We actually harvested one watermelon and 2 sugar melons in October and let them ripen some more inside. The melons tasted great, but, is all of that effort worth it for only one melon per plant?

I also had some flowers divided in the greenhouse to help attract pollinators.

The way I laid out the plants in the greenhouse

Seen from the door, on the left there where 3 mortar buckets. The first one with the celery and a sugar melon and the second and third with basil and a watermelon. Following that there where 4 wooden planters. The first planter at the wall had the cucumbers and the second planter at the wall had volunteer tomatoes. The planted cucumbers in this wooden planter somehow disappeared. The first planter standing next to that had one tomato plant in the middle and the pepper plants where eaten. The planter next to that had a pepper plant in the middle and tomato plants to each side of the pepper plant. I should have taken the volunteer tomatoes out from the planter at the wall, since this was too crowded, the tomatoes where hard to harvest and more vulnerable to blight.

At the right side of the door it started with a wooden planter with the pickling cucumbers and some pepper plants and next to that another wooden planter with 2 tomato plants and 3 pepper plants equally divided.

Next to that came a small walkway and three mortar buckets. The middle one was for one of my kid’s and the 2 outer once had a tomato plant. Then a small walkway again and 2 wooden planters. The first planter had 2 tomato plants and 3 pepper plants equally divided and the second planter had 5 pepper plants. Then after a small walkway again 3 mortar buckets with the middle one for one of the kid’s and the outer 2 with a tomato plant.

After that again a small walkway and 2 wooden planters. The first one with 7 pepper plants and the second one with 2 tomato plants and 3 pepper plants equally divided. And ending with 3 mortar buckets after another small walkway. Again the middle one for one of the kid’s, the one in the corner with a potato and the other one with another tomato plant. Beside this one, at the end of the main walkway, we added another mortar bucket with 2 sugar melons and some flowers.

We hat interplant everything with some lettuce and basil.

Generally speaking the greenhouse felt too crowded for me and the basil was somewhat hidden, but we did get a good harvest out of the greenhouse and the hole family loved snacking directly of the plants.

Plans for next growing season in the greenhouse

Since we got so much chilli peppers this year we will not have to bother growing so many next year. I would like to grow some more basil and plan to fill 2 entire wooden planters with basil instead of popping some plants in here and there. Since the pollard willows have been pruned again there will be full sun for the entire greenhouse next growing season. Therefore I can swap out positions for tomatoes and cucumbers, since the cucumbers definitely need the most sunlight and sunlight will be enough in the entire greenhouse. With all of the sun burning on the greenhouse, maybe the melons have a better change next year. O, and the celery could do with some more space as well next year. But it still is quite some time until the next season starts, who knows what changes I will come up with by then…