Greenhouse
Our yard is full of mounds of dirt that are probably produced by pocket gophers. Last fall I feebly attempted to grow some greens in the front garden. As soon as the butter lettuce had leaves they were gone. Likewise for everything else that sprouted up, except for weeds. I had plans to build some new raised beds with hardware cloth at the bottom this spring, but the bigger landscaping project will be disrupting every obvious place to put a raised bed. We do have a greenhouse, however. It might provide some protection from the gophers and it is already irrigated.
It’s quite warm in the greenhouse, even now in March. Previous owners installed fans to address this, but whatever power source they used is gone. This weekend we installed a solar panel on top of the greenhouse to juice a big battery that powers the fans. As a bonus, the battery also has wifi, conveniently transmitting readings from the temperature/humidity sensor inside. From my phone I can turn off the fans once it starts to get cooler in the evening and turn them on as it heats up in the morning.
It is also extremely dry in the greenhouse, as no one has turned on the irrigation for a long while. This probably contributes to wild temperature fluctuations. In the mornings it is actually colder in the greenhouse than outside. Mid-day readings are stratospheric even when it’s only in the 70s. (Below: a screenshot of a graph depicting daily temperature fluctuations. Wednesday’s 80 degree temperatures had the greenhouse over 100 degrees even after turning on the fans. And Saturday morning’s low was below freezing.)
Today I opened the spigot, allowing water into the raised beds. As water trickled in, I watched the temperature drop and humidity rise to 16%. After dumping some raised-bed mix into the frames, I added a little bit of seeding mix in the small patches at the end of the drip lines. Finally, I planted an assortment of cool-weather seeds like cilantro, arugula, and kale. Hopefully something sprouts, but even if it doesn’t we’ll learn something.
For more greenhouse and garden content, including more photos, see the recent post on Robert’s photography page. And those who prefer to receive updates in their email, find me over on substack. (Below: a QR code to subscribe to my substack).
