This is my first greenhouse! My husband got it for me from Costco, but it took him 6 hours to put together, and the pre-drilled holes did not line up with the screws that sometimes bumped into each other and had to be drilled in a different location.
The spring loaded mechanism has a temperature sensor, that whenever it gets too hot, it expands and pops the roof door open, which is cool!
My New Greenhouse
Here is a 5-minute tour of my new greenhouse:
Having a greenhouse expands your growing season by being able to start seeds early without having to buy grow lights, especially if you don’t have the indoor space to do it.
I got trays to go under the small plastic containers, where I placed seed starter soil and wet the soil before planting the seeds to the correct depth. Then I labeled each pot with a black Sharpie marker on a popsicle stick.
I’m growing more green beans this year, as well as bell peppers that did well last year. Cucumbers did well in a somewhat shaded area that other seeds did not do well in, so I will grow cucumbers again in that first raised bed I showed you last year.
Place your greenhouse in a sunny location if you can, close to your house so you can keep an eye on the moisture of the seedlings, that they don’t dry out before they germinate. Also place an outdoor thermometer in the greenhouse so you can see what the temperature is. One day it was cold, and I placed a large pot of hot water with the lid on, into the greenhouse and set it on the ground. The heat ematated up from it for several hours to keep the seedlings warm.
This is one of the most elaborate and exciting mazes I’ve ever seen: a cardboard labyrinth with lights, including black lights! You will need quite a large area, because the bigger the maze, the more fun it is. You can start collecting cardboard boxes from appliance stores and Costco several months before the event. You can set up your maze outside if you want, but then you will have more difficulty in lighting it up with desk lamps, black lights, and even white Christmas lights.
This cardboard labyrith was built in a church, where there was plenty of space. There should be an entrance, an exit, and many twists and turns with several dead ends. You can mark the entrance with a black Sharpie marker above the doorway.
Then you need many spools of packing tape and duct tape. Duct tape is stronger and preferred, but packing tape is also fine and costs less. Set up all the boxes first without taping anything, just in case you change your mind on the design. Once everything is in place, you can start taping the boxes together.
It’s nice to have a light at the end of a tunnel, and a desk lamp works perfect for that. You can place those in the corners. Cut a hole in the top of the corner cardboard box and place a plastic plate on top of it. (You can get those at a dollar store.) This is so that the kids don’t burn themselves on the light bulb. If the dish is a red see-through color, the light will look red.
You can also use black lights to make one of the corridors super cool. Cut holes in the tops of the boxes and place the black lights on top.
This will add ambience, and the kids’ light-colored clothes will glow.
It’s a good idea to use chairs or other furniture at the junctions, to keep the labyrinth from coming undone.
When you exit the maze, you feel like you have truly had an adventure!
Our family has constructed so many fun things with boxes over the years, so we really enjoyed this lit-up cardboard labyrinth!
I’m feeling so excited and inspired this year to create a new set of vegetable beds! Vegetables are so much yummier from the garden than from the store, and there are no perticides in my backyard because I will be using natural ways to keep pests away.
Once again, I used the sun lamp from the hydroponic garden to start my vegetable seeds this year. I placed an old cookie sheet under the seeds so that water wouldn’t get all over the counter. I am growing three heirloom tomato plants in the hydroponic garden. Then I’m also growing green beans, peas, cucumbers, melon, watermelon, and lettuce. My lettuce grew successfully from seed last year and produced a harvest throughout the entire summer.
My husband got me a couple of raised cedar vegetable beds, and I found some tall trellises at Lowe’s that were half the price of Costco. We filled the raised beds with good organic soil made especially for vegetables.
I’ve been studying about companion planting. Basil is a good herb to grow beside tomato plants because they keep the tomato pests away. Cucumber grows well with green beans and peas. I grabbed a sheet of paper and began scribbling where I would place each plant for maximum happiness for the garden.
Come to find out, cucumber doesn’t like basil, so I scribbled it out and placed it next to the peas instead of the green beans. The back of the raised garden bed is where the trellises are, so the green beans and the peas will be climbing those trellises. I have some poles to put the cucumbers on. I found some potato starts at a local gardening store, and green beans produce nitrogen that potatoes need, so I want to put potatoes next to the green beans.
Watermelon and melon grow along the ground, so they can grow around the potatoes and tomatoes, if they run out of space. We also got jalapeño peppers and red and yellow bell pepper plant starts. My husband and third son love jalapeños, and I use bell peppers in salads and other dishes.
I have an apricot tree that hasn’t started producing yet. I placed lupine flowers next to it on both sides, because they produce nitrogen that fruit trees need. Then I placed ruby red bottle brush in front of the fruit tree to draw more bees to pollinate all my produce.
The raised bed I showed you last year on my YouTube channel cracked over the winter, so I had one of my sons remove the legs and place it on the ground. I planted strawberries in it, because strawberries are invasive, and I want them contained. The strawberries in the terra cotta strawberry planter mostly came back, surprisingly, after so many freezes and thaws last winter.
On my back porch I’ve planted wisteria in large pots to grow over the pergola and draw more pollinators to the backyard. I also placed annuals inside the pots. One of the annuals is marigolds because they keep mosquitoes away, and I was just bit the other day before I decided to get an insect-repellent flower. Red geraniums have always been an easy flower to plant, and I got some small blue flowers to round out the splash of color.
I’m looking forward to see how successful my vegetable gardens will be. I will try to come back and drop another picture in here, to show you what it looks like when it’s all producing yummy vegetables!
The plants in this hydroponic garden grow directly in water… with no soil. Every two weeks, the little green light on the bottom turns red to remind you to put two capfulls of plant food into the water. Other than that, you just top off the distilled water each day, and you get lucious herbs. Simple.
My husband got me this one from Costco, but you can get them various places and under different brands. What they have in common is that they have pods that you place into the water. These pods contain seeds which germinate when placed in water under a grow light. The grow light on this model (Aerogarden) is adjustable. You place it lower when the seeds are germinating, and as they grow taller, you raise the light higher.
How to Set Up Your Hydroponic Garden
Here is a tutorial on how to use your hydroponic herb garden:
As you can see, you fill the container with distilled water, so as not to crust over the system with harsh chemicals from tapwater. Then put the lid on, and place the herb pods into the circles.
Place the little “greenhouse” over each pod until they sprout. Then remove the “greenhouse,” allowing the plant to grow taller.
When the herbs are so tall that they touch the light, they need to be trimmed or transplanted to another container or outside.
So far we have grown herbs (including basil, parsley, and mint) and some cherry tomatoes. It’s fun to add some greenery to your home, and to have herbs available to clipping and throw into your cooking!
Hi! I'm Susan Evans. I speak at homeschool conferences about hands-on learning and run a huge unit study membership site. I also speak at women's retreats on the topic of prayer.
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