Greenhouse Gardening

Greenhouse Gardening

Left: Spaghetti squashes, Early Girl tomatoes, pink lavatara.  Right side: Mystery Day dahlias

The little seedlings have almost all started to sprout in their pots which I have transferred from the living room window to the greenhouse. We started up the heater and have it on a timer to come on at night. The night time temperatures are still single digits below zero, but during the day the sun warms the greenhouse  up to 30C or higher.

Tomatoe seedlings that have sprouted:
Purple Russians  (the first to sprout- produces oval purpley-red tomatoes)
Early Girls  (usually develop their fruit first)
Lemon Boys  (sweet yellow tomatoes)
Tumblers  (small thumb sized tomatoes)
Patio  (compact growth, good for small spaces)

The New Zealand tomatoes seeds have not come up yet.

Firebird Dahlias

Squashes
all 3 types of squashes have sprouted, spaghetti, Butternut and one lone acorn squash.

No English cucumber seeds have sprouted. Might have to buy a couple of bedding plants like last year.

I planted 4 more pots of flower seeds from flower seed packets that were in the greenhouse;  sweet peas, more cosmos, nasturtiums and some foxgloves.  Not sure if they are still viable seeds since they likely froze there all winter, but I thought it was worth a try.

Red "Thompson" dahlia

I had potted 2 more Dahlia tubers recently, a new two tone purple colour called Mystery Day which I bought at Wal Mart. Thought it was appropriate since I had taught elementary school for the Mystery Lake School District in northern Manitoba for many years. :)   They took about 10 days to sprout above the soil in our warm laundry room and yesterday I transferred them into the greenhouse to continue their growth.

Geraniums
I over wintered about a dozen geraniums from last years garden; some beautiful pink one from my flower boxes on the deck stairs landing, some perfect blue/red geraniums from the tubs at the far end of the driveway, a Samba red and apple blossom white from deck pots from previous years.

I cut slips from the apple blossom white plant, and from the Blood red plant which are all in the greenhouse.  I need to fertilize them to encourage them to root. (A fertilizer with high nitrogen- a large first number.)

Still to do : pink geranium slips.

New bird houses

Diligent husband has started building 7 new birdhouses in the garage. We have about 20 birdhouses on our acreage, but many of them are old and starting to fall apart. I'm sure the Tree Swallows and House Wrens that usually nest here will appreciate them. :)
Happy planting!