Unexpected Greenhouse Goodies

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(Edited)

My greenhouse story: April has been hot. And dry.
I haven't checked the official sites, but I'm pretty sure this it has been the hottest an driest month of April in decades, if not since 1830.

Greenhouse Goodies

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I've been enjoying the weather a lot. But the gardener in me is a bit frustrated. While it feels like summer already, it is too soon to start planting my veggies in the garden. Our average last frost date is May 15th, and from past experience I've learned to respect that date. Despite the high temperatures we're experiencing now, there's no guarantee it won't be freezing here a week from now.

So, my patience is being tested, just like during the previous years.

 

Outdated Pics


 

Quite a lot is going on already in the garden. Last week, I took photos of everything, but didn't get myself to make the post. Making a complete overview would take up a whole lot of time, so I kept postponing in.

Of course... we're one week later now, and those pictures are already completely outdated. To avoid giving myself a work overload,I've decided to split things up.
In this post, I'm going to walk you through the greenhouse.

 

The Luxury Of A Greenhouse


Instead of the cold frames I was using last year, everything goes inside the greenhouse now. In the afternoon, the temperature in there goes up to 38°C (91.5°F), so it is the perfect spot to keep my seedlings until they can be planted outside.

Chinese Artichoke (AKA Crosne), Yacon, Peppermint, Chives, Wilde Garlic, Upright Pennyroyal, melon pear and pinapple sage are gathered here until they can be transplanted to their permanent place in the garden.

Greenhouse goodies

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.I'm still experiencing issues with my back, I had decided to keep the sowing to a minimum this year and just buy seedlings. Other years, my electric propagator works overtime this time of year, but I haven't even plugged it in yet.

The few things I've sowed (some basil, giant sunflowers, regular-sized sunflowers and 3 cannabis plants I'll be growing for a friend) I have put in a couple of mini greenhouses and put those in the main greenhouse. Plenty of sun and warmth there, so the propagator became obsolete.

Sunflowers

The sunflowers have popped their little heads above the sand two days ago, same for the basil (which needs to be thinned out urgently). Yesterday, I also noticed the little cannabis seeds turned into tiny seedlings.

Cannabis

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Growing things for others - especially cannabis - is not my favorite thing to do, to be honest. I mean, my friends see me as a wizard in the garden, but the truth is that I just wing it. Most of the time I follow my gut feeling and experiment. But hey, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, right?!.

Being responsible for other people's cannabis plants makes me a bit nervous. It's completely different from growing anything else. They're counting on a good harvest; failing is not an option. So you can imagine how happy I was to see the little seedlings pop up from under the sand. First hurdle taken.

 

 

 

Craving For Fresh Lettuce


I also sowed some lettuce here and there. Because of the situation with COVID19, we're trying to avoid shopping for food as much as we can. One trip to the shop every two weeks does the trick for now, but after the first week, I'm really craving for fresh veggies. Being able to pick lettuce, rocket, lemon balm straight from the garden has never been such a delight as it is this year.

Green house lettuce

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In the front yard, we still have some beets and some carrots that survived winter, and quite some purslane that grew back pretty fast.

So even though it is still very early in the season, we do have fresh veggies whenever we want them.

A couple of weeks ago, I also bought two cabbage seedlings. One has been planted in the garden outside, but because we had a couple of very cold nights, the other one is growing up inside the greenhouse until all risk of frost is gone.

 

Greenhouse Cabbage

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Just a few days ago, I planted a bunch of plant onions next to the lettuce I sowed, and they seem to be growing at warp speed.

 

In For A Surprise


 

Before winter, we added our home made compost to the raised beds in the greenhouse. Truth to be told: we don't take compost rules very strict. We try to, but somehow we always manage to add things to it that shouldn't be added, like plants and flowers that already went to seed, or leftovers of fruit that still have seeds in them.

As a result, I now have some mystery plants growing in the greenhouse.

At the same time lots of weeds are popping up. Last year's calendula flowers, borage and Marigolds dropped a lot of seeds on the soil, so they're starting to pop up again too. When everything is so small, it's not easy to determine what exactly is growing.

One of the first surprise plants was this one:

Greenhouse Squah

 

When it was smaller, I couldn't really tell if it would grow into zucchini, cucumber, melon or squash... the small seedlings of those all kinda look alike, in my opinion.

It has grown a bit bigger now and I'm pretty sure it is a squash variety. That would make sense, since we had a squash plant growing on our compost pile last year.

I'm gonna let it grow a bit bigger and stronger before I move it to the garden and plant it in one of the outside beds.

This last week, one unidentified plant started growing faster than the others. I vaguely recognize its shape, but I can't pinpoint it. It looks a bit like a small gooseberry or tomatillo plant, but I'm not sure about that. I've decided to let it grow up and hopefully I'll be able to identify it soon.
(Feel free to let me know if you recognize the plant and can name it.)


In the bed on the other side, another big question mark. It's not as recognizable as it should be, because it suffered from a bit of slug damage. I hope it survives so I can figure out what it is.

Greenhouse mystery

 

In the same bed, I noticed another plant this morning. The shape of the leaves and how the leaves are attached to the stem, remind me of lemon pear (AKA Sweet Pepino). That would be weird, though. I've been growing plants in the greenhouse for a couple of years, but the fruits - which contain the seeds - are picked when they are ripe, and I eat every single one of them. They're too delicious to let them go to waste. The plant simply doesn't get a chance to reproduce. So probably I'm way off and it's something completely different. But what, then??

In one of the big containers, some rocket popped up. Never grew rocket in the greenhouse before, so I assume the seeds got there by wind, or maybe even pollinators, although I'm not sure that's even possible.

ROCKET


 

Regrows


I had lots of differen tomato plants last year. By the end of the season, the greenhouse was a jungle, and I couldn't prevent that some of the tomatoes fell off the plants and onto the soil.
A mild winter followed, and it seems like some seeds that were left behind sprouted agin.

This one was the first one I spotted. It's still very small, and I have no way to find out which variety it will go into. I don't really care. I love it when nature surprises me.

Greenhouse tomato

 

These little ones are for sure Red Robin tomatoes, as they started growing in the pot where I had that mini-variety growing last year. I still need to decide which one I will keep.

Greenhouse Red Robin

 

The ment verbeena lost all its leaves during winter. Since I have neglected to water these beds all winter log, I had not expected that it would have survived winter.
Apparently, I was wrong. Small green leaves are forming again. I wonder if the stems will grow as long as they did last year. They were easily 3m long.

Ment verbena

 

And of course, the lemon balm bushes I planted on both sides of the greenhouse entrance are growing at warp speed again. I placed them there to repel musquitos and other annoying bugs. This will be the third year they will be guarding the gate to paradise.

Next to their repelling talent, they also make a delicious and healthy tea. And on top.of that, they're absolutely stunning.

 


More


More is yet to come. I have ordered a lot more veggies and herbs (both culinary herbs and herbs that can be use for medicinal purpose).
I had promised my girfriend to keep it small, but I assume that when you're reading this, you'll understand it's nearly impossible to pass on all those interesting fruits, veggies and herbs.

 

 

Need Some Advice


 

While you're here, I might just as well ask for some ideas on a problem I have. A problem.of which I 'm not sure how to handle it. I've tried so many different things, but so far without any succesd...

Ants... sigh...

 

Ants

Source
I really need to get rid of the ants that are all over the beds in the greenhouse. Last year, there were hundreds. This year, it feel like there are hundreds of thousands.

I'm fully aware that ants an sich are not really a big problem. They only do little harm.

The big problem is that not so long from now, aphids will start appearing, and we all know both species share a symbiotic relationship: ants protect aphids in exchange for the sugary substance the aphids produce.

The best way to fight aphids is by using ladybug larvae. However, when there are a lot of ants around, these larvae don't have any chance on survival.

I tried garlic, cinnamon, lemon juice, (pepper)mint, pepper and cayenne pepper, detergant, neem oil, coffee grounds, honey and yeast.... all these remedies work for about a day. Then they just return.

I can't move the nests, because they are somewhere inside my raised beds.

I'm not intetested in chemical solutions.
But I'm all out of ideas at the moment.
Feel free to shoot your tips.i'm desparate enough to try them all 😉

 

 

Future Plans


I would really like to turn my greenhouse in the regular wilderniss again.
I'll probably not go crazy with tomato plants this year. 7 plants were way too much for the two of us.

I'd like to add some melons this year too, and - if I get a chance - some more uncommon fruits and veggie. I'm always on the lookout for new experiments.

What have you been growing in your greengouse that is out-of-the-ordinary? I would love to hear it!

 
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31 comments
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You have a great variety of unusual vegetables and herbs there @simplymike

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Thanks. It has become a bit of an obsession to always get out of the ordinary stuff 😁

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It's funny to see greenhouses and for people to assume it's normal. Here in Asia we have SHADEhouses for veggies - to prevent them from burning and too much sun. LOL.

It never ceases to please me to see seeds sprouting. 😍

Good call on avoiding the shops and eating from the garden as much as you can.

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Well... these last couple of years, I turn my greenhouse in a shade house in summer. It has been so incredibly hot the last 3 years or so that I take a special kind of canvas that we normally use to create shade when we go out candy, and hang it over the greenhouse so the plants don't burn.
And believe it or not, I have been thinking about doing that today already. Four weeks of full sun and summery temperarures. It's almost 40°C inside the greenhouse.
I have a couple of tomato seedlings in there... they can't take that much sun. Next week it's gonna be a bit cooler again, though.

Btw, what I was meaning to ask you: do you have Belgian or Dutch roots? You are Pure Thai Naturals on Twitter, no? 😉

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I AM dutch, Mike. Yes, Pure Thai Naturals on twitter, which is also the name of my herbal-natural products company in Thailand. I was born in Den Haag, Holland. 2nd half of my childhood plus "a few years" in Australia. And now 17 years in Thailand.

The locals here - we do it too - build shade structures over garden beds using slatted bamboo (which we have in plague proportions).

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Wow, it's all looking great! I'm also quite surprised by the sudden growth due to the warm weather! Everything is green stein!

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Except for the grass, lol. That's turning brown and dying already...
I should have put up my inflatable swimming pool a couple of days ago. I've just come back from the garden (and the greenhouse) and I'm all dizzy from the heat. §(I have lived in Belgium my entire life, so I'm not good with hot weather as you are 😉)
Guess it's not really worth inflating it at the moment, though. next week is gonna be a lot colder.

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Ah, the grass is still good up here... nice and lush, although... I'm still struggling with the blackberry. I am still pulling up little bits of roots here and there!

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Ours is back full force again. I dug it out as good as I could last year... (or was it the year before?), but the MF keeps coming back. Let's hope it will at least carry berries this year 😉

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Oh the ants.... Borax and sugar could help and making sure that the plants are well-watered. Water-stress is what makes them vulnerable to aphid attack.

Your mystery plants: yes, time will tell. Our gooseberries are furrier than that but it could be. As for the damaged plant - rub the leaves gently between your fingers. If you notice a turpentine smell on your fingers, it's bugweed, a highly invasive nuisance. I don't know if you get bugweed over there but that's what it looks like to me

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We tried something like that last year: we used bicarbonate aka baking soda and sugar. (Isn't borax the same thing???)
They simply refused to pay attention to it. I think in the end it was a whole lot of lemon juice that scared them away. But I already tried that this year. It worked for a day, and then they were all back.
I did just find a step-by-stem wikihow, though. I'll give it a try tomorrow.

Water-stress is what makes them vulnerable to aphid attack.

I didn't know that. I did know that plants are more vulnerable to aphid attacks if they're under or over fertilized. Guess I didn't think any further, lol. Water-stress makes pla,nts weak too, so it's only normal that that's a factor too.

I must admit I'm already having a hard time to keep the plants watered well, bot inside and outside the greenhouse. It rained like an hour in the last 4 weeks, which is definitely extraordinary in our little country. The sun shining like it is mid summer doesn't really help. I water everything in the morning, and a couple of hours later, the soil is dried out again already.

Norrmally I have an irrigation system in the greenhouse, but we took it down last year. We still need to set it up again. Who would have thought we would need it before July 😂

I've also been thinking about digging in some bottles in the raised beds, so it's not only the surface that gets water, but also the lower regions. I tried that before a couple of times, but for some reason, the bottles always become clogged up pretty soon. Still need to take time to search the web to do it properly so That won't happen again.

Thanks for the tip on the bugweed. I tried looking it up, but it seems we don't even have a Dutch word for it. I came across some recent studies that mentioned that it's growing here now, though....

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Borax is not baking soda it's used as a household cleaner😀 I have used it and the ants definitely like it. Mix in these ratios: 1/2 C sugar, 1 1/2 Tbsp Borax, and 1.5 C warm water. I took little plastic takeaway sauce containers, punched holes about halfway up the sides and then filled the bowls with the mixture to just under the holes and put the lids back and placed them in strategic spots. It's not an immediate fix but it definitely gets rid of them.

My climate is so hot and dry I could not even consider raised beds or unlined wooden box gardening. In fact, I use tons of mulch to try and keep the water in the soil.

You'll know for sure if it's bugweed - Solanum mauritianum - by the smell if you crush a leaf

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Oh, yes at my homemade compost always grow seeds without my will, especially tomatoes :)
You seem to be doing fine, even though you say you are not in the best shape. I am sure you'll have a lovely garden!
I never thought of ants as enemies but you are right they do help and spread aphids which I fight, when they do come with a mixture of water, soap and alcohol. For ants I have heard of cayenne pepper or boiled orange peel, but you have to find the entrance of their nest. Also heard about spraying with an infusion of water and tobacco but have never tried it either. And there is a natural powder used in organic farming. I hope I translate it correctly, it is Diatomaceous earth. It might worth looking into it.
Looking forward for your next update!

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Oh, yes at my homemade compost always grow seeds without my will, especially tomatoes :)

Good to know I'm not the only one 😂

You seem to be doing fine

I am, but I need to take it slow. And I can't bend, or kneel for too long, carry stuff and so on. After about half an hour or so, I need to go lie down. Because of that, I don't really get a lot of work done.
Fortunately, my wife is the best. She doesn't really like gardening, but she knows what it means to me, so I get quite a lot of help from her 👍

For the ants... finding the entrant of their nest is the big problem. I think it's somewhere in the middle or at the bottom of one of my raised beds.
I actually just read about Diatomaceous earth. We have some, since it works great against parasites in chicken.
Might give it a try. problem is that those ants are all over my raised beds. If I water the beds in the morning, I can spread Diatomaceous earth on them, but they often need to be watered again in the evening, if not, the next morning - means I need to start all over again 😂
But I'm definitely gonna give it a try. I've tried everything else already.
Same happened to me last year, I literally tried every trick in the book. And all of a sudden, they were gone. Too bad I don't remember what scared them away in the end 🤦‍♀️

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That's what partners are for, help us out :) And you seem to have found a very nice one!

Same happened to me last year, I literally tried every trick in the book. And all of a sudden, they were gone.

I had a similar experience with ants in my house and I am pretty sure that they left on their own and will be back at some point! They may have a pattern or something triggers a change in their route, can't tell for sure. I wouldn't know what else to tell you except good luck!

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Awesome post!!! I miss my garden but it's nice seeing yours. How unseasonable is this weather!!! It's so warm in SW UK.

Verbena DOES lose it's leaves over winter - mine does, even in milder south Australian weather.

I mean, my friends see me as a wizard in the garden, but the truth is that I just wing it. Most of the time I follow my gut feeling and experiment

You are a wizard darling, just own it. Intuitive and experimental gardeners are as good as spreadsheet gardeners - our way of doing things is just different.

Great to see you have lots of greens going.

Is it gardnejournal time????

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Verbena DOES lose it's leaves over winter

Well... I did learn that a couple of days agi. I'm very fond of lemon verbena, and every year, I have 2 or 3 plants in the garden.
When the season had ended, I always threw them away and bought new ones in spring.
This year, we didn't get a chance to clean up the garden before winter, so the 3 pots with lemon verbena are still where we left them in October.
To my big surprise, they're growing small green leaves again. I was so happy when I saw that. 😄
Yet another thing learned 👍

You are a wizard darling, just own it. Intuitive and experimental gardeners are as good as spreadsheet gardeners - our way of doing things is just different.

Thanks for the kind words, @riverflows.
I guess you're right.
Thing is that my garden is the only place in the world I don't suffer from fear of failure. By not doing things by the book, I know I risk doing something wrong. If I do and the plant dies, I shed some tears (I really do, poor plant) and try to make sure I remember how not to do it in the future. (Doesn't always work, I have the memory of a goldfish 😂)
But taking care of someone else's plant... that's a completely different thing, though.

Hehe, about my bad memory: I've been actively using companion planting for 3 or 4 years now. Still, every time again I need to do the same research again. The good neighbours, well, I have a pretty good idea about those. But once again I don't remember about the bad neighbors.
I had my garlic ready for planting earlier today, then I started wondering again if it was a problem with cabbage, and/or with fennel 🤦‍♀️
Every year the same thing. I once wrote a blog post on my Dutch post with the title: 'my garden is a puzzle with too many pieces' 😂
And it really feels like that.

I realize it's probably not as big as an issue as what I make from it, but I think companion planting is so incredibly interesting that I want to make the most of it. I just need that memory to cooperate 😂

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Nice update and you have a good variety going for you. When you plant in the same area year after year, it's not long before you start to get some volunteers growing. Just chalk it up to added variety.

Our safe planting date outside is also Mother's Day, so we must be in the same growing zone.

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You have a picture in this post that is labeled "Lettuce"

Actually they are "mustard greens". I love to eat them with grilled chicken with it dipped in kalamansi or english name kalamandin, with steamed jasmin rice.

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Yep, you're right. They are mustard greens, and utterly delicious 😁

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Yes, mustard greens are awesome

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Looks good. We always try and get stuff in early but every few years that one cold night in May will get us. Best of luck. I just took 50 cuttings off my navel orange tree today to root and plant around the property.

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Good luck with the cuttings.

This is actually the first year that I don't have anything outside before out last frost date. Apparently I 'm learning after all 😂

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