Greenhouse Dreaming

By Lia Leendertz for Hartley Botanic
Photographs courtesy of Hartley Botanic

Greenhouse Dreaming

I love this stage of the greenhouse gardening year. Not, necessarily, because I am much enjoying being in the greenhouse right now, although I will admit that I love to be in there tending to the few overwintering seedling on the odd sunny day, the glass magnifying the heat and warming my back. But let’s face it, that is not most days right now, and most often I am happy to stay indoors in the warm, and the most productive use of my time is in day dreaming.

Bespoke Glasshouse– Colorado, USA

There are few moments in the greenhouse year when this is the case. Come spring we will be all action and juggling, come summer we switch to watering and encouraging, and then in autumn that final push of tending and coaxing out every last fruit and vegetable we can from the place. It’s non stop. But now, it is our brains and not our hands and our backs that are needed.

Bespoke Glasshouse– Massachusetts, USA

Because it is time to decide what we are going to do with this lovely little sheltered space which traps heat and basks in sun and makes it possible to grow the things that we cannot grow outside. Possible, though not necessarily likely, but you can’t tell me that at this time of the year. This is the moment when everything feels possible. I may have had failures in the past but this year? Forget it. Will this year finally be the year of the fabulous melon harvest? Why yes, it probably is! Perhaps the sun will shine all summer long and this unlikely fruit will ripen beautifully and early, and we will have a glut, by which I mean more than one... Will I put the cucumbers into the greenhouse at the right time this year, and not just before a cold snap which makes them struggle and damp off. Yes, I do believe there is definitely a good chance. I have learnt my lesson after all, surely…

Hartley 8 Planthouse (4 Pane)– Sheffield, UK

Just as all of these things seem perfectly reasonable, and with the verdant, bountiful summer greenhouse looming large in my imagination, it is also the time for seed buying, and lucky seed sellers, because all over the country gardeners are doing the same right now: believing– despite all evidence to the contrary– that this year will be their year, and placing hope firmly above experience as they work their way through their optimistic seed order.

Victorian Grand Lodge– Lancashire, UK

So what will it be? Well there’s those melons. And of course I’ve got to crack it this year with aubergines – I have had good years and bad years and this is almost certainly a good one. Cucumbers are dependable and I am not too worried – I reckon they are in the bag, so they go on the list. Lots of basil of course, and a couple of bell peppers.

Top of my list always are beefsteak tomatoes. I am a sucker for them, large, burnished red, dripping with savoury juices. I promise that I have never actually taken a Mediterranean holiday just for the tomatoes but they are a draw as strong as the beaches and the dappled vine covered terraces and the drone of evening cicadas. And I imagine each year that I don’t need to drag my family to the airport at 4am to experience this. I can just grow my own, and sit on my own dappled terrace dining on beautiful tomatoes and good olive oil. And some years it works, though some years it doesn’t. And this year will be a good one, for sure.

TO READ MORE CLICK HERE

All Hartley Botanic’s Glasshouses and Greenhouses are handmade, bespoke, and made to order. Customers interested in purchasing a Hartley Botanic Glasshouse visit: www.hartley-botanic.com or call 781 933 1993 for more information.

All articles are copyrighted and remain the property of the author.

Article URL:
https://www.gardensmart.com/?p=articles&title=Greenhouse_Dreaming