Greenhouse Gardening with BC Greenhouse Builders

If you watch old re-runs on Netflix you have seen how fashions and styles have changed dramatically since Seinfeld was filmed in the 1990s. The same is true for food – especially lettuce.

I first wrote about “novel” mesclun greens (mixed lettuce) in 1995. Since then, they have become so popular, that bagged lettuce is the only lettuce most people know. And this is too bad because lettuce greens or bagged greens are really just immature greens like kale and lettuce leaves. So, for something completely novel, why not go back to the future? Grow full-size head lettuce in your Greenhouse Garden this year.

Most people don’t remember life before the small bags of lettuce leaves so commonly sold now at big box stores and local farm markets. But if you want the crunch of lettuce in a BLT sandwich or if you want to replace Pita bread with a Keto-friendly lettuce leaf wrap for lunch, then start growing your own heads of lettuce this season.

Another reason to love the greenhouse

Lennie tracked me down at a party. “It’s my cauliflowers,” she sighed. “They are small and button-like instead of big like at the store.”

Growing Soil with Hügelkultur

When I moved homes and built a new greenhouse, I was in for quite a surprise. The natural soil on my new lot is sand. Pure, yellow sand. This means it drains really well. It also means it does not hold nutrients to feed my plants.

Schedule Your Greenhouse Garden Now

Showing off my arugula (also known as rocket) on Instagram leads to a lot of questions about my greenhouse and what I currently have growing. 

Five ways to raise your flowers and food

Seed:

Nature hates a gap. That’s why weeds fill in every nook and cranny available to them outdoors. Sprinkling desirable seeds outside as the snow thaws on the south side of your home or Greenhouse Garden this spring lets you copy nature’s best efforts. Inside your greenhouse, scatter seeds on top of pots or flats. A light dusting of soil and a sheet of glass laid flat over trays keeps the humidity high until the seeds grow.

Success in the greenhouse is simple

The doorbell rings and the Purolator truck pulls away as I open the door. A shoebox-sized package is waiting on my step: my greenhouse bugs have arrived!

Optimizing Your Greenhouse this Winter by Growing Food Year-Round

In my region an atmospheric river flooded out roads, rails and farms. This probably seems pretty minor compared to areas affected by cyclones and hurricanes but one thing is certain: there has never been a better time to own a greenhouse.

Sunshine on Your Face in the Greenhouse Garden

I close my eyes as I bask in the sun, heat on my face. I take off my jacket and then my hat. My neighbors, friends and family have gone away to Martinique, Belize and Spain but I am experiencing the best holiday. I am sitting in the sun at home – in my Greenhouse Garden.

The Trouble with Greenhouse Tomatoes

Do your greenhouse tomatoes have heat stroke?

If your tomato blooms are bending and falling off, flower and all, they are having a heatstroke. When extreme heat hits, greenhouse tomatoes fail to set fruit even as the leaves keep growing and new blooms appear.

Like something out of a horror film, the army of purchased insects sense the trouble-makers and bite their head off as they emerge…. And just like that, my greenhouse problem is solved.

In the Beginning

Speckled leaves on my strawberries make me think of spider mites, but I am wrong. When I tap a leaf with tell-tale speckled leaves, I catch three white immature thrips on a piece of paper.

Thrips move slowly, crawling or sometimes hopping but never really flying. They fall easily on the piece of paper I hold below the leaf. Whiteflies are a brighter white and they fly quickly as soon as a leaf is touched. I do not have whiteflies.

My immature thrips are the size of a 12-point Helvetica lower case “e” on the recycled paper I use to catch them and they are a serious bother on my strawberry plants.