Greenhouse season

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

There are so many seasons and this time, right now, is a season of closure. How, you might wonder, could this time of green forested hillsides, wildflowers blooming, gardens just starting to flower into fruit buds, ever be a time of closure? Well, it is. It is time to close up the greenhouse.

My garden starts are all planted. I still have a few marigolds to set out here and there, but not many. It is time to enter inside these glazed walls and get to work. There is so much to do.

I'll start with the float bed, slashing the black liner so the water can drain into the ground beneath. No need to nurture mosquitos. I'll leave the bed's dirt floor covered so that weeds won't grow. Then, I'll weed the rest of the greenhouse. It amazes me how quickly greenhouse weeds can proliferate. I use my trusted triangle hoe, a gift from a friend many years ago. The worn wooden handle fits my grasp perfectly as I dig out the stubborn nettles. They have a proclivity to sneak inside, somehow working their way under the perimeter walks.

Then, I'll wheel several barrows full of unused potting dirt back home to the compost pile. There, soil can once again be home to the pile's thriving worm population. The dirt smells so good.

Next, I'll turn to my two long potting benches. They are built with waffled tops that allow spilled dirt to fall through to the ground below. I'll sort through my many plastic potting containers and organize them by size and shape. For some unknown reason, they tend to lie scattered randomly all throughout the planting season, but this cannot last. They will soon be perfectly sorted and stored along the back of the benches.

The last thing I'll do is go through my tools. Like the pots, for some unfathomable reason, they tend to lie in haphazard fashion here, there and everywhere. I'll gather them up and organize them by function and height, and then I'll line them all up in a row leaning back against the wall right by the door. My smaller hand tools I'll place handle up in a hanging bucket.

And then I will sit down in my greenhouse swing, push back and let my self-generated breeze blow through my damp hair, for you see, even though I purposely choose a cloud-covered, rainy day to close up the greenhouse, it still gets rather toasty inside, and this is the reasoning behind my season of greenhouse closure. On a sun-filled day, even with all the louvered windows and roof vents cranked wide open, the temperatures inside easily exceed 120 degrees, too hot for most plants and too hot for me. 

Yes, it is time to close the greenhouse.

I'm sure, however, that you must know that the greenhouse is not really closed. Its season is simply over. On rainy summer days, you might very well find me swinging through the sheltered air inside. You'll likely find me looking out through the glazing at the green growing all around outside. You might even join me and pull up one of my tall potting stools. The rain will fall down on the glazing over our heads, and we'll be perfectly dry in our greenhouse world. Though closed, my greenhouse is always open.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in Ohio south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.