Thursday, March 7, 2013

My Garden 2013: Starting In My New Greenhouse

Update 4/4/2013: This blog post was merged to "Daddykirbs Farm Blog". Please reset your bookmarks so you don't miss any super exciting updates to my garden and orchard!

Go to this link to view and comment on the current blog: http://daddykirbs.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-garden-2013-starting-in-my-new.html

I am very excited for this years garden! I have a greenhouse! This is the first greenhouse I've ever owned. It's not very big, but it should give me a nice place start my seeds and over winter some of the plants. My small Lemon tree will appreciate that.

These Harbor Freight deals can be pretty good. This greenhouse was on sale for $299 and they allowed me to use another 20% coupon on top of that. I was going to build my own greenhouse from scratch, but the cost savings here changed my mind.

This was from my garden last year. I have dreams
of greater success this year. My greenhouse is
bolstering my confidence! :)


Best of all, now that I have it I can SAVE MONEY! I used to buy all my plants for the garden, but now I can start from seeds. Plants can cost $4 each. A seed packet is usually around $1. Each seed packet can start 50 plants or more.

Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse: Framing the Short Wall
Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse
Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse


In this video you will probably notice that I can hardly contain myself :) I feel like a little kid with a new club ouse or something. Only here... I am inviting you into my club, not keeping you out! LOL.

After my introduction I have a series of video clips that show how the greenhouse went together. I don't think you should use this as a stand alone "how-to", but it might assist you in the process of building.




I wanted to share with you how I started my tomato seeds in the greenhouse too. I really don't know what I'm doing so forgive my mess! This video shows that process.




Most of my tomato seeds this year were purchased from +Gary Pilarchik at The Rusted Garden.
You won't find a nicer guy to buy seeds from ;) He specializes in heirloom tomatoes.  I chose to use the heirloom tomatoes this year because I'd like to learn how to save seeds for myself. By the way, Gary has videos on his blog about how to do that.

After the building and planting and the time it takes me to get a blog post up... here is an example of a little tomato seed that decided to love me back.

daddykirbs Garden Blog: Tomato Seed Sprouting

My little girl wanted to join in on the fun so she started one of the black sunflower seeds from the bag of chicken scratch. She grew some last year too :)

daddykirbs Garden Blog: Sunflower Seed Sprouting

We started a row of these in the raised beds too. We read that Sunflowers make Cucumbers taste better so we will start the Cucumbers near these.

I loved in elementary school when we got to start Sweet Potatoes in little cups! I decided to try it again here in the greenhouse.  These are holdovers from the very few that I grew last year. These will be planted in the Hugel Beds up by the Orchard.


Here are a handful more of the construction photos.

Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse: My Helper :)

Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse: Constructing the Short Wall

Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse: Constructing the Short Wall

Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse: Framing Done

Update:

Looks like I didn't fail completely :) Almost all of the seeds have sprouted.

Daddykirbs Garden Greenhouse: Beautiful Tomato Sprouts
Go to this link to view and comment on the current blog: http://daddykirbs.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-garden-2013-starting-in-my-new.html



11 comments:

  1. Thanks Tessa Neil! It sure is a lot of fun :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Finally got around to reading the full post. I'm amazed you find the time not only to do all this, but to slow down and record it! Here's to a greenhouse that will provide years of satisfaction and savings LONG after it has paid for itself in cheaper, high quality food!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andrew, my list of projects is so long... I just keep chipping away at it. My Galaxy S3 has been an amazing help in documenting it all. I have it on me all the time so I just whip it out to snap pics and short video clips.

      Delete
  3. Nice greenhouse! And very interesting post!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've been trying lately to make better... More detailed, more focused posts. Thanks for visiting and commenting!

      Delete
  4. Thanks for sharing your greenhouse project! It looks amazing! I can hardly wait to use mine! =)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I look forward to seeing pics of your greenhouse :) Your blog and artwork are very cool! I just followed you on Pinterest too.

      Delete
  5. Looks awesome! Did you build your greenhouse from one of those greenhouse kits like here? Was it a difficult process to put up? I really want to put up my own greenhouse, but am a bit intimidated by the scale of the work. Your pictures and videos are inspiring, though. Maybe this year, I'll take the plunge! Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I did buy the kit. It wasn't too difficult. The instructions are ok and the parts were labeled well enough. Watch the video for the process.

      Delete
  6. Thanks for sharing! It looks amazing! I've been trying lately to make better... I really want to put up my own greenhouse.

    ReplyDelete

This blog has been merged into Daddykirbs Farm Blog. Please look this post up at http://daddykirbs.blogspot.com to comment. I love your comments and interaction. Thanks!