Our New Greenhouse

+ things are getting weird.

What a beautiful Friday.

It may only be seven degrees outside currently, but the sun is shining. God has been merciful to us in the frozen high desert this year. Not only did we exceed normal snow-pak, but we have had more sun in February than normal. Snow-pak for us is critical.

By definition of the EPA “Mountain snowpack plays a key role in the water cycle in western North America, storing water in the winter when the snow falls and releasing it as runoff in spring and summer when the snow melts. Millions of people in the West depend on the melting of mountain snowpack for hydropower, irrigation, and drinking water.” In simple terms, we rely on our winter snowpack for our water. In an area like ours that receives very little rain per year, our winter snow is our summer water. The snow will begin to melt and fill up the ground water that we rely on to fill our well each year. Around our valley, reservoirs that water orchards and pastures fill up almost entirely from winter’s precipitation. To be angry at the snow, even with it’s inconveniences would be, as they say, ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’.

For the farmer, water and sun is life blood. And now, by God’s mercy, we have both.

This past week we finally finished up a project that we began long ago. A project that is completely contingent on water and sun to be fruitful:

For those wondering, this is a Planta SunGrow Greenhouse. While I love the finished product, it arrived in a zillion pieces and (as you’ll see in the video) took us a year to finally finish. You’ve been warned.

This weekend will be the first time I head out into the greenhouse to plant seedlings. I’ve eliminated a lot of the “extras” in the garden this year and am concentrating primarily on:

• tomatoes for sauces and preserves

• eggplant (because it’s my favorite vegetable)

• cabbage for sauerkraut

• storage onions

• storage carrots

Of course we will be growing a lot more than this, but my objective is to really concentrate our garden efforts this year on what will provide us with the most meals year round without taking up too much of my energy. I love to garden but in the heat of the summer, the vegetable beds are really a challenge to content with. Last year, we had over 90 days of over 90 degrees. Gardening in that type of heat takes a toll on the gardener (though the garden in many ways seems to thrive in such weather). So we’re keeping it straightforward and manageable for our little crew.

If you watch the video, you’ll notice I’m using new cell trays this year. Not to throw Johnny’s under the bus here, but I invested a lot of money into cell trays a few years back and they’re almost all trash. They get brittle, crack, and don’t stand up well at all to the rough and tumble nature of my garden apparently. I hate spending money on items that don’t last. I stumbled upon All About The Garden last year after binge-watching Charles Dowding on YouTube and desperately trying to find his grow trays here in the US because they looked so wonderful. Turns out, there’s one company who imports those trays and All About The Garden is it. You can shop the trays (I’d recommend the corresponding water trays too) right here if you’re interested.

(WHY they would ever make cell trays that don’t have a big enough hole for a finger to pop the seedling out is beyond me. I’ve been known to pop them out with forks. Never again.)

In other news, as we continue to creep towards the end of February, I just wanted to send out a ray of encouragement to those of you (like me) who tend to struggle a bit at this time of year.

When I went outside to take some photographs for this new blog post on how Things Are Getting Weird, I told myself “See the beauty. It’s here. Try to see it.”.

This is not the easiest time of year to do that.

I’ve tried to crawl my way through the last of the winter by focusing on this:

I don't just love bats, hummingbirds, zinnias, pumpkins, soil, snow, or bulbs. I don't just love these things for what they are. When I'm outdoors – whether it be attending a lamb's birth, planting garlic, or listening to rain – it's like getting to spend time in God's playground. A museum, a shop of curiosities, an art gallery that sparks my creativity, fastens my faith in His hand that sustains it all, and gives my heavenly thirst a drink of cold water. 

God created the crab apple blossom, the woodpecker, the sunrise. All held together by the perfect conductor. 

…more on that in this week’s new blog post.

Before I sign off for the weekend, I wanted to remind you that our new online store is open for orders. We’ve got merchandise, as well as vintage and new speciality copper pieces for sale. The first few weeks of orders have gone out and the feedback has been wonderful. We spent a lot of time trying to source quality pieces that would wash up and hold up really well. We also worked hard to source everything made in the USA.

I’m really, really happy with the results. You can shop the online store here.

Enjoy your last few days of February, my friends. We’ve almost made it.

Cheers,

Shaye