GardenDesk

The Greenhouse is Cluttered, but Helps Keep Everything Dry

We enjoy having our homemade green house, but right now its looking a bit cluttered.

As you can see, its not cluttered only with plants. Since this has been the wettest spring on record so far, our greenhouse tends to serve as a rain refuge for outdoor use things like lawn furniture, our cornhole boards, my daughters hula hoops and my little Mantis Tiller/Cultivator.

These things were just put here temporarily to keep the rain off of them. Some of it can be put back in our shed or basement when not in use. What I do store in the greenhouse all the time is our chicken feed in the galvanized garbage can and straw used for the chickens nesting boxes is kept in a bin in front of the can.

It looks pretty messy right now, but everything is dry. Soon I'd like to build some bench work down the middle to hold the plant trays. Last year I had it built with cinder blocks, but that gave too many nesting opportunities for mice this winter. Yuck.

Anyway, messy or not I really like having this greenhouse right next to the chicken coop and right in front of the garden.

Is Winter Really Over?

I actually got hot outside today while I was pruning the apple trees. It was 62 degrees and the snow is just about melted! Could winter be over? I don't think I can believe that since we have had record amounts of snow this year.

Here in Kentucky we didn't get near the snowfall that the east cost got, but we did get 27" in February and more that a foot of it all at once. It was hard to keep it off of the greenhouse.

My daughters favorite thing about having a greenhouse this winter was that when we were playing in the snow, we could go in there to warm up. It was also a great place to keep the sleds!

The only thing we could do in the garden was go sledding.

That picture was taken during one of our smaller snowfalls. Most of the time the garden beds have looked like this:

There was a lot more snow than we are used to. Even playing in it got us much more tired than usual.

It was our first winter as chicken owners. I learned that chickens do not like snow!

During the last snow, about eight inches blew into their pen and the girls refused to leave the coop. When they would jump down into the snow, they would squawk and flap around like they were being attacked! I actually had to shovel out the snow, put new wood chips down, and bait them out with lettuce from the greenhouse.

They still spent most of their time inside, but at least now they would come out to eat and drink. That's also about the time they start laying more eggs again. Now that it has been warmer, there are some days that every hen lays. Soon I will be able to let them back out in their grazing pen.

There will be a lot going on in the garden pretty soon too. I do have some early tomatoes and lettuce started and have much to share with you.

So what do you think? Is Winter almost over?