Is It Still Spring???

Do you remember a post from last week that looked like North Dakota? Snow... really deep... and rather cold? Good. That means I'm not hallucinating because it got up to 72 F yesterday and I wasn't sure but maybe we slept a bit longer than the usual eight hours Thursday night.

It being thoroughly pleasant, I took the opportunity to clean up the old greenhouse. Here you can see where I've painted all the exposed wood with good ole' Kilz. Hopefully it really will stop the decay for a few years yet. I'm still deciding whether or not to paint the green walls. They're peeling a bit... but then... they're also half rotted away in the wet places. I'll decide when this week's forecast rain has passed.

As you can see, I've also started digging a bed at the base. I think peas and spinach will do well until the shade takes over in high summer. The greenhouse had quite a bit of stuff in it, mostly old, dirty pots so my first job was to find a place for them that would be both out of the weather and out of the greenhouse. Intuition says dirty pots might just invite disease. This odd little block room is behind the greenhouse and hidden under the deck. We suppose the original owners meant to build a root cellar but the water that comes down the walls with every rain ruins that idea. The roof is otherwise quite tight so it makes great storage for "dirty stuff."

We brought the plastic shelves from Santa Fe. Wish I could remember where I bought them. Lowes? It's actually only two sets. The ceiling is about 6' at the rafters. Yes, even I, the little person, whacks her head going in and out the low door.

And here is my beautifully renewed greenhouse. All washed, twice scraped, and painted with lots and lots of Kilz. I even located the pinstop for the automatic vent opener and you can just see it working perfectly in the upper right. The high today was 71 F and the greenhouse got up to 85 or 90. Nice and cozy! Certainly a whole lot better than the 110 degrees I worked in on day one!

Now it's time to start filling the place up with seed trays. I already have six 32-cell trays clean, disinfected, and ready to go. (Thanks, Mary, for leaving them for us!) Now it's time to fill them with tomatoes, chiles, and all those other things one needs a head start on in Zone 6!