Not bad.  Yesterday I went out to the greenhouse and harvested a few chard leaves to add to a stir fry.  I found both the chard and the kale to be a bit weepy, which tells me that it has indeed frozen in the greenhouse overnight.  But, the greenhouse is acting as a giant coldframe and the greens perked up a bit.  They’re still good enough to eat, and were a delicious addition to last night’s dinner.

The seeds that I planted way back when have sprouted, but they’ve been stuck in sprout mode ever since.  It just doesn’t get warm enough I guess.  They’re not dead though, so we’ll see what happens.  I truly have no clue how greenhouse gardening actually works, so every bit of observation is helpful.

If you would have told me, though, that I could still be harvesting Swiss Chard on December 6th, I’d have thought you were nuts.  It does make me wonder if having the chard in the greenhouse will get it to behave like the biannual it actually is.  I would love to be able to harvest fresh greens in the early spring, and maybe gather my own seed at the other end of it.

Oh yes.  We went there.

This week Andy had some extra time off and he really needed a project.  I asked him to make a simple plant stand for my rosemary plant, and somehow over the three days he didn’t work, that turned into a greenhouse for Garden Bed Number One.  Here’s some pictures.

There is still kale and swiss chard thriving in this bed, and a few carrots that need more time to mature.  In addition, one lone Lemon Drop cherry tomato plant is still plugging along.

Today Andy put the door on and then put a thermometer inside.  When the sun was bright and shiny it was 76 degrees, despite the 45 degree exterior!  So that got me thinking, and it didn’t take me long to decide I needed to play around and see just what a greenhouse could do.

Of course I planted something!  I planted three varieties of radish, a bit of broccoli raab and then a bit of spinach.  I guess I’m not sure what to expect of any of them- I suppose that will depend on how the temperatures go for the next while.

To be completely honest, I’m not sure what to expect.  I’ve read quite a bit about growing in a greenhouse, but never actually expected to give it a shot, so we’ll see what happens.  I’m thinking that I’ll be able to use it to extend the season by about  a month on either end of the growing season.  I’m really not expecting much out of the seeds I planted, but I guess you never really know until you try.