Well as summer draws to a end slowly … and with the reminder that its going to end soon with the night time temps around 39 degrees last week!! Its time to look towards winter plants.
I found www.reimerseeds.com who like many others, had seeds for plants that tolerate cold temps.
We purchased for winter:
- Sub Arctic Tomato (fruits when in the 30 degrees temps!)
- Window box roma tomatoes
- Salad bush cucumbers ( another colder winter vegie that grows in small containers..apparently)
- Cold set tomato (another down to freezing temp type tomato)
- Tall Utah Celery (if it can grow in utah it can grow in a greenhouse here I think!)
- Artic king lettuce (the name says it all)
We have changed our planters for the winter, so we can put rope lights in the soil to keep it warm (yes rope lights are cheap and simple for heat!) We purchased some flat and long plastic storage containers from big lots for $8 each, painted the sides black and drilled holes in the bottom for the drainage.
The heater strung up and set to 60 degree for night time temps
This is where celery and arctic king lettuce has been planted for the winter
Some sub arctic tomato plants are planted here the new winter planter boxes.
This is the roma tom on the left and the early bird tom on the right, still fruiting.
Bok choi in the planter tubes along the walls, the soil was replaced after the lettuces finished in here.
Cucumbers in the planter bags for winter
Bib lettuce in the tubes starting from seed, these are great in salads
This is the poor eggplant after it was attacked by aphids, we seem to have rid the greenhouse of nearly all the bugs, and this plant is growing back slowly
Bell peppers are still growing and fruiting.
The herbs are loving it, in fact we have too many and have to freeze them weekly.
The head of the giant tree tomatoe which is now getting toms on it
The giant tree tomato plants and trying to break thru the roof.
The roma toms and early bird toms
These toms took the brunt of the aphid attack, although now aphid free I had to cut them back a bit to get them thru it all, but all it well now
Well with the impostors, the aphids taking their toll, and the fact that we have eaten all the lettuce it looks like I have gotten behind on the planting schedule, so the greenhouse within 1 week has gotten pretty empty looking.
The giant tree toms look like they will be able to not be attacked by the aphids as long as I keep up the fight and spray them constantly, some lettuces took a hit, but the herbs and strawberries are ok.
Roma toms and Early Bird toms seem to have missed the aphids
Giant tree toms are well... giant and have a small bit of aphid damage
Bell peppers are being harvested at the rate of 1 per 2 days which is pretty cool for a little greenhouse!
This week we seemed to have had all the aphid eggs hatch and then attack, destroying one tomato plant and threatening to kill the rest of the plants. The are mean little things and hard to kill!
By the way using as many sites say a mix of dishwashing liquid and water, just burns the plants and cleans the aphids…. so I dont recommend it!
By with the help of a fogger and some other nasty stuff full of permethrin which seems to be the only thing to make them drop dead on the spot. Of course this isnt the best stuff to use on vegetables so we are trying our best to avoid any vegetables and all takings get really well washed!
Here is the little buggers at work:
I am hoping this is damage caused by the aphids and not a disease or fungus
Aphids
APhids eating away
The damage by the aphids on the beefsteak tomoato plant
Here is one chomping on the giant tree tomato
This is where they all came from, I think they were on the eggplant when I bought it from the store
The little greenhouse that could has let us have a fairly good amount of produce in its 2 mths of use:
- 4-5 lbs of tomatoes
- Mesculan for 10 large dinner salads
- Lettuce , about the same amount as 15 store bought salad bags (we harvest it as we need it, not always taking the whole head of lettuce)
- Onions -2 lbs
- Peppers - 2 red peppers so far (really sweet tasting too, totally different to store ones)
- Strawberries - hard to tell as we pick and eat most of the time, but around 1 lb of them I guess
- Herbs:
- Basil, Parsley and Thyme a lot… about enough to fill 10 x 1 qt ziplock bags of each!
- Cilantro, only about 2 x 1 qt ziplock bags so far
I keep reading reviews about these plants with people saying the seeds area croc of shit, and dont grow, but they do, follow the instructions, use logic and wait! The grow, they are just slow to start (8 weeks to sprout in our case)
But we have 2 trees 6 feet high and growing with little fruit already on them and more to come!
So to all the negative people , go and try growing something else, these just aint for you obviouslyt.
We got our seeds from gardnerschoice.com, and in no way did we get any kick back or are we affiliated with the owners of that company. ( but if you are ready how about some free seeds for winter toms??)
Giant toms growing in buckets inside the greenhouse
Sorry its blurry but this is the 2 giant tomato trees we have
Well the heat is here, people tell us its only going to be hot up here a couple of days… well wasnt that a lie! With 14 days as of today already this month higher than 90 degrees I think they maybe were away on vacation last year this time!!
But the greenhouse is getting hit by the heat, even with the vents open and shadecloth on the roof and back wall its stinking hot, but so far all is well. Well maybe not, there was a lot of seedlings that were old and I tried to plant then and get them to grow, but they didnt like the idea with the heat and all died!
The full little green house
Peppers galore
Tomatoes, eggplant, brocolli and peppers in the far corner
The herb end of the greenhouse needs some harvesting
peppers, looks like soon we will have lots of them
Strawberry plants hanging and alone wall, with roma tomato plants against the wall and herbs growing in trays on the floor
The previous weeks heat has caused some of our lettuces on the sunniest side to go straight to seed which is a bummer, but they will be replanted and we will try again, and out tomotoes are producing now at the rate of 2-3 tomatoes per day.
The giant tree tomatoe plants as you can see are really giant, and growing, I think they will need their own greenhouse soon! We also have some bugs appearing on the tomatoe plants and eggplants, being non organic farmers… we plan on having them dead with good old fashioned insecticide shortly.
The greenhouse in its full and busy state
Herbs are growing like crazy, we have never grown herbs successfully before so we are impressed.
Peppers are everywhere now
Romaine lettuce and strawberry plants are great, the romaine is actually sweet tasting
Eggplants, some growing upside down and with some little bugs on them
This bread is great for camping, or if you want a bread you can make on the bbq or in a firepit whilst bbq’ing.
The Oz ealry settlers baked this bread on a open fire, you bake this bread in a regular oven, bbq or fire. A good twist on this recipe is to wrap the dough around a stick and cook over an open fire.
2 cups self-rising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
Mix the flour, salt and sugar together in a bowl. Put in butter until fine crumbs form. Add milk to make a soft dough. Knead lightly on floured board. Shape into round loaf, brush with milk, and bake at 375 degrees F. for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the loaf makes a hollow sound when tapped.
If you are to bake this on a fire or in a propane bbq, we wrap the dough in non stick aluminum foil …if its non stick of course you will need to make it non stuck by using flour or a spray on non stick.
One great way to make this a sweet treat is to eat the fresh bread with butter, strawberry jelly (jam) and a dollop of whipped cream .
