Greenhouse Re-Upholstery

I guess the fact that I am about to complain about our greenhouse speaks to the privileged life we lead here at the Golden Rule Garden, but those who have seen it will agree – it is almost worse than no greenhouse at all. See Exhibit A above: the original skin, fiberglass. No doubt wonderfully durable and transparent for the first couple of years, but you can see to what level it has sunk. Yes, technically it does let in light, but probably around 50%, and that is abysmal for a greenhouse. Does anyone know the word “leggy” as applied to plants? Here is Exhibit B: seedlings which, though given plenty of water and excellent flat soil, could still arguably be described as “languishing” in their relatively dark dungeon. Exhibit C, parts one and two, are full-grown amaranth plants inside and outside the greenhouse. As you can see by the little reddish blotches towards the top of the sea of green, the ones inside are reaching for the sun, putting all their energy into nearly eight-foot stalks with tiny seedheads. The ones outside are short in comparison, maybe 4.5 feet, but have great, full seedheads. I rest my case. The defense might add that the greenhouse does provide enough warmth for the lemon trees to survive and that swiss chard sure seems to thrive, but I, the prosecution, would interject that, yes, the chard does fine until the aphids get tired of their first love, the fava beans.

But let’s not bicker about it. The truth is that our greenhouse is not ideal, but we must make the best of it. And the best of it is the south end, where a few years ago a seedling room was created. Set against the southwest corner, interior walls and lowered ceiling were framed and covered in plastic to retain heat, and the floor was covered in hardware cloth to keep miscellaneous varmints out. It works great to collect and retain heat, even in January, but does a poor job in the sunlight department.
The point is that we want strong, correctly proportioned seedlings, not weak, leggy wastrels. That’s where a little motivation and all the wood, plastic, and screws one could wish for come in. We have been thinking about taking the roof off the whole dang structure and covering it in plastic, but that seems to be a long way off. The real urgency was the seedlings, and so I got permission to take drastic measures on the west side of the south end.
Step one was to, well, take a picture for posterity, of course! But then to remove all of the fiberglass. I’ll let you know, for those who haven’t experienced it yet, that deteriorating fiberglass leaves shiny little fibers all over your hands. I guess the resin breaks down and stops holding it together. Anyway, I got the gloves out after I realized that fact. This was the simple and fun part, first because it got a lot hotter after about 10 am (on the south side of a big structure), second because it’s always a lot more fun taking things apart than putting them back together. So the second photo in the series is the naked seed room.
The upper section of fiberglass didn’t need to be removed, but I wanted to tuck the plastic sheeting under it, so I climbed up above the seed room inside and screwed in scrap wood to prop the upper section out from the wall. You can see that in the third photo. Also subtly present in this photo is the absence of the sliding door rail, which, though heavy and unwieldy, was completely in the way and had to be removed temporarily. So did the windows.
The third photo also showcases the first layer of plastic. I stretched it as tightly as possible simply for the sake of being neat and tidy since it will not be subjected to the stresses of wind like the outside layer. While one layer would be enough to protect the seedlings from birds, heavy rain, and fierce winds, it would not insulate nearly as well as two. Kind of a primitive double-paned energy star window, but we’re short on caulking and argon, so we went with the easy way.

I put the first layer of plastic directly on the frame of the greenhouse, then screwed 1x2” boards over it as the spacers between plastic. Nails would have worked as well and been cheaper, but I don’t know how long this greenhouse is going to last. I don’t want folks to be cursing my contribution when it comes time to disassemble.

The last photo shows the final product. The second layer was stretched as tight as possible, and ¼” boards were nailed along the studs. This way any flapping in the breeze will be kept to a minimum, and the thing will last longer. All the finishing boards are redwood, which is kind of a treat. Too expensive in many areas to be practical, these specific boards are reused from a recently renovated building that is over sixty years old. Redwood is local to us, and can be farmed responsibly, though due to the age of these boards it is possible they are from old-growth trees. Redwood is known for its slow deterioration, to which these particular boards attest.
An important point here: this project does not express our walk of sustainability, just so nobody thinks I'm completely ignorant of this point. Plastic and fiberglass are not, as of this writing, supplies which can be created without a lot of toxic processes. And, clearly, they are not made to fill their purpose for more that five or ten years, after which time they will be junk. We will need to be much more insightful to devise sustainable tools for season extension.
I’m not a great finisher, so this project was a real trial for me. The bulk of it was simple to execute, but the final touches of trimming, tucking, filling gaps and fine-tuning were a bit much. Thus the homage to those, like my friend Bobbi, who have a flair for sharp re-upholstery.
In the end we have a seed room that will be worth the effort others have already put into it, because now the fortress lets in light!

Formerly Known As the Plastic Cloche Emporium and House of Miscellaneous Pots

Everybody has probably experienced the feeling of seeing something that looks useful, or actually may be useful but not at that moment, then struggling with whether to get rid of it or not. Those of you with garages, attics, or barns each have the experience to a different degree. And those who have hobbies requiring large numbers of objects bigger than a stamp understand that stuff gets collected. Every once in a while, say during the cold and rainy winter months, you get a chance to step back and look at the past 20 years' accumulation of these objects. You have the opportunity to look at them with some sense of perspective. Especially if someone else put them there.

Let's get to the point now. You may or may not be familiar with the idea of season extension. Most often it involves greenhouses, floating row covers, cold frames and such. Back in the 1800's the French Intensive gardening method started using glass bells, each of which would cover one plant, to be able to grow earlier and later in the season. Here is a close view of one I found on a forum about how to start eggplants in Ireland.
One of these cloches for each plant in your garden. Are you starting to see how this could lead to the "large numbers of objects" I referred to earlier? For an even better visual, check out this blog post by Alexis Madrigal on the subject of British food raising in 1918. The photo shows women working with over 200,000 cloches, each covering a single lettuce plant. Wow, huh? You might ask why one would go to the trouble working with multiple tons of glass pieces that are somewhat expensive (especially now) and very breakable, not to mention need to be cleaned occasionally to remain transparent and have to be stored somewhere when not in use. And the answer, of course, would be because they work very well for the purpose, which is to get plants going weeks or months before they would ordinarily be planted. A gold mine for the savvy market gardener or the farmer trying to produce as much as possible.
Ah, but the times have changed, and plastic has altered the season-extension landscape. We have greenhouses covered with flexible and cheap alternatives to glass, and we have plastic milk jugs that are durable and cheap alternatives to the traditional glass cloche. A brief moment for the downsides of this revolution: when carefully attended, glass will last a long, long time, but plastic will turn brittle and opaque with but a few years' exposure to the sun. Then what? It is unusable and becomes junk, or gets recycled into an even less stable form of plastic.
Back to the theme: cloches are helpful, and empty milk jugs are plentiful. So why not collect as many as you can, just in case you might use them later for something? I have one good reason, which is that someone else will eventually come along and have to clean up after you. In this situation we had about 500 cubic feet of milk jugs, some already converted to cloches by having the bottom cut off, some not yet converted, and many so brittle that they broke into a disagreeable number of shards that then had to be swept up.
I'd like you to know that I am not bitter about this. I am writing from a perspective of wisdom, which I would like to share. That is this: don't stockpile useless plastic things for some hypothetical future scenario, no matter how well-intentioned. If you find you want, say, 1,000 plastic milk jugs, call up your local elementary school. Present your idea to a bunch of the classes, and let them know what you hope to achieve. Your cup of milk jugs will runneth over, probably in a matter of days, and you will have captured the imagination of a whole school of children that will be excited for at least a few days about your garden.
Next up are the miscellaneous pots. Anytime you go to the nursery to get a plant, whether it be tomato, spice bush, or maple, it will come in a pot. A plastic one. Somewhere between 2-24” wide and deep. It might be black, it might be red, white, or green. It may be made out of tough plastic, or possible the really weak kind. It may be smooth, or have ridges. In fact, it may have vertical or horizontal ridges. Maybe 8 ridges, or maybe 20 or them. Maybe it will have holes by which to hang it, or maybe flanges by which you can clip a tray on the bottom. It might have indentations set so perfectly that, when stacked with others of its kind, it nests without sticking. But this measure is useless, because whatever it looks like, whatever its attributes, you can be guaranteed that it will be at least subtly different from any other pot you have. As you can see from the picture, this makes for beautiful variety. For effect, I put them all in stacks according to their basic dimensions. And, for the record, there were as many as 8 pots that were actually identical in design. But for each of those matching pots there were three that absolutely refused to nest with another.
All this is great if you are displaying your diversity of potted plants, but if you want to store pots for some other day such variety of design is a waste of space. So we are getting rid of them, giving them to a local nursery that fosters out such pots to more willing owners.
We are finally clearing out all the unwanted and space-stealing plastic from our storage space!

ps.
I kept some of the potential plastic cloche jugs. Just the ones that are in better shape. You know, because somebody might want to try using them sometime in the next couple of years...