Succession and relay planting under cover

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MForest
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Hi Jack and Dan: Nice new video around planning/layout of the beds; it will be most helpful! Thanks!

Jack, you mentioned putting up a greenhouse over a few of your beds and wanting to grow basil--I've had lots of luck with it here in Victoria in my unheated greenhouse (south wall removed during the heat of the summer). I plant the basil between and in front of tomatoes and peppers. And then if you like greens over the late fall, winter and spring, once we remove the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, we fill this greenhouse with spinach seedlings (specifically Monstrueux de Viroflay from WCS--it grows beautiful, huge, tender leaves) and Asian greens; we usually chop down the plants as they go to seed in April. We start all the seedlings in July/August and pop them in along with cilantro as soon as the peppers and tomatoes are gone.
steve_miller
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Thanks for the info, I like the spinach In the fall program!

Steve
PeasIntheRain
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MForest wrote: Thu 06-Jan-2022, 20:28 Hi Jack and Dan: Nice new video around planning/layout of the beds; it will be most helpful! Thanks!

Jack, you mentioned putting up a greenhouse over a few of your beds and wanting to grow basil--I've had lots of luck with it here in Victoria in my unheated greenhouse (south wall removed during the heat of the summer). I plant the basil between and in front of tomatoes and peppers. And then if you like greens over the late fall, winter and spring, once we remove the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, we fill this greenhouse with spinach seedlings (specifically Monstrueux de Viroflay from WCS--it grows beautiful, huge, tender leaves) and Asian greens; we usually chop down the plants as they go to seed in April. We start all the seedlings in July/August and pop them in along with cilantro as soon as the peppers and tomatoes are gone.
That sounds fabulous! May I ask what temperatures you see in the greenhouse during the winter? (We built a small glasshouse beside a barn. Winter temperatures are basically the same as the outdoor temperature, perhaps because our sunlight intensity is so low...)
MForest
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Hi there, our winter temps in the greenhouse range widely! If there’s sun during the morning, the temps can get up there (from 4 outside to 18 at 1300 hours today), but then quickly drop back down again to very similar temps to outdoors. What this greenhouse does is keep the salt spray, the cold wind and snow off the plants. After our very cold last couple weeks and the dumps of snow, I was fearful that we’d lose the greens, but although a few lower leaves looked very unhappy, everything has popped back up as of yesterday/today. And with the windchill, we had some days of -6 here in Victoria during the last couple weeks. I guess the snow that sat on the greenhouse roof probably moderated some of the cold temps.
Trixi Agrios
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What you are doing with your greenhouse sounds great. I have an unheated greenhouse in my garden in North Vancouver, 6x12 in size, and I am not very successful with it. Can you send us some pictures on how you’ve constructed the beds and planted it and some tips on your success please? Thank you.
PeasIntheRain
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MForest wrote: Sun 09-Jan-2022, 20:57 Hi there, our winter temps in the greenhouse range widely! If there’s sun during the morning, the temps can get up there (from 4 outside to 18 at 1300 hours today), but then quickly drop back down again to very similar temps to outdoors. What this greenhouse does is keep the salt spray, the cold wind and snow off the plants. After our very cold last couple weeks and the dumps of snow, I was fearful that we’d lose the greens, but although a few lower leaves looked very unhappy, everything has popped back up as of yesterday/today. And with the windchill, we had some days of -6 here in Victoria during the last couple weeks. I guess the snow that sat on the greenhouse roof probably moderated some of the cold temps.
Thank you, that's really helpful. And yes, the winter resilience is so cheering! I've been crunching my way through snow for kale and parsley, still happy and green under the snow.
jack oostenbrink
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MForest wrote: Thu 06-Jan-2022, 20:28 Hi Jack and Dan: Nice new video around planning/layout of the beds; it will be most helpful! Thanks!

Jack, you mentioned putting up a greenhouse over a few of your beds and wanting to grow basil--I've had lots of luck with it here in Victoria in my unheated greenhouse (south wall removed during the heat of the summer). I plant the basil between and in front of tomatoes and peppers. And then if you like greens over the late fall, winter and spring, once we remove the tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, we fill this greenhouse with spinach seedlings (specifically Monstrueux de Viroflay from WCS--it grows beautiful, huge, tender leaves) and Asian greens; we usually chop down the plants as they go to seed in April. We start all the seedlings in July/August and pop them in along with cilantro as soon as the peppers and tomatoes are gone.
awesome Michelle, I am really looking forward to getting a greenhouse up...and my planning chart now has spinach and winter greens following the tomatoes and peppers in that space!
MForest
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Trixi Agrios wrote: Mon 10-Jan-2022, 08:14 What you are doing with your greenhouse sounds great. I have an unheated greenhouse in my garden in North Vancouver, 6x12 in size, and I am not very successful with it. Can you send us some pictures on how you’ve constructed the beds and planted it and some tips on your success please? Thank you.
I’m attaching some photos of the long greenhouse in which we grow spinach and Asian greens during the winter. The roof and walls are polycarbonate. You’ll see vents in the two end wall photos; there’s a solar fan behind the vent in the narrower wall. The fan turns on when the sun shines or the sky is very bright—exactly what we need during the summer! The front photo just shows a couple of the 4x4’ sliding doors. (I just realized that I need to reduce the photos in order to attach them—will try to figure that out later today—I’m an oldster and a neophyte at much of this.).

We built this to use up space between the sidewalk and fence (somehow our house builder didn’t line things up squarely so we have a ‘gradually increasing width’ kind of greenhouse! Approx 32’ long, 2.5’ to 4.5’ deep and approx 5’ tall on the S side and near 7’ tall at the back wall (N side). The soil is just over 2’ deep; we put a heating cable about 6” down and have only used it once in 9 years—not necessary here in Victoria, it turns out! We recently switched the irrigation from spigots and shrubblers to drip hoses (with emitters) on a timer.

Hope this is helpful! I wrote a longer post about the greenhouse(s) but it doesn’t seem to have been posted—I likely screwed up as LHG is my first forum experience.
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