Complimentary Blueberry Juice

We passed the one-month mark since transplanting in the new greenhouse and the results are totally blowing our minds. It seems like each day we go in there you can see visible growth. The cherry toms are stretching up to their 3rd truss, the beefsteaks are setting fruit, the cucumbers have been trimmed and pruned to set their first fruit, the peppers are setting flowers, and the lettuce is just about ready.

There’s a few new varieties of cherry tomatoes being trialled here…so far, this is my favourite, some of these fruit sets are absolute MONSTERS with 40+ flowers. I had no idea this was even possible but it’s amazing what you can find if you go looking. If they taste half as impressive as they look I’ll be happy!

The beefsteaks are setting fruit already, and its wild to have the same variety we have in the field for comparison. When normally we would plant out in early June, and we did, our field tomatoes are just starting to grow and are weeks from setting flowers. The same variety in the greenhouse planted on May 7th is already setting fruit. The benefits of protected culture, warmer temps and keeping things out of the wind, is something the plants are visibly responding to.

Lastly we’ve got beets humming along and probably ready in 3 weeks. Typically we have a hard time getting beets going in the spring, we often are “looking” for a place to plant them, and waiting for rain, and we’ve had myriad problems over the years getting our first crop established. With a little transplanting we can get beets super early, and next year I will expect them by this time.

I’m also quite surprised by how little water we are using for the greenhouse. I thought perhaps we would need water every day, but the drip irrigation we’re using seems to be doing a great job and our watering is efficient and metered out to every 3 days or so.

And it’s all great for pictures, as we can watch a transluscent silhouette of the sunset through the far wall.

Graham

thanks for reading complimentary blueberry juice