I’m finally doing it…after 15 years of growing under shade cloth, we’ve decided to finally build a bonafide greenhouse. This one will be 30 x 48 with fans and an evaporative cooler. This brings our total under shade growing area to about 4500 sq ft.
Our growing conditions here are often different from other places around the country. We are mainly faced with keeping our fabulous new plastic box in the sun cool, rather than warm, save for a couple nights a year. It occurred to me this year that I lost way too many rare anthurium seedlings to rot from over a hundred inches of rain this summer ( a million?) I lost count. I simply need a covered area to grow properly. Yet, I hate to lose the fabulous, life giving rain water and then water with our brown well water, so maybe I need to collect the rain water and use it for irrigation. Even though I lost everything cold sensitive in 2010 when cold weather caught us with our plastic down, there are still some plants who have formed a union of sorts and have agreed to grow better if they don’t have to sit through a couple cold nights that retard their growth…and the rain.
All summer I’ve been trying to take pictures and pack orders…again, in the rain. It gets really really old. The dang murderous raccoons and their love of juicy koi…they won’t be able to get in…Buwahaha!
However, there is the small issue of hurricanes. Hurricanes are known to hate greenhouses/shade houses for unknown reasons. Ehhh…I’ll worry about that next hurricane season.
This project has just started, and I will detail it in phases and take pictures as we go.
Now I can finally grow a Victoria lily to full size…or maybe some of the large growing Amorphophallus like titanium and gigas. Ooh! Cyrtospermas! Now I can get that variegated red sealing wax palm I’ve had my eye on! Er…I’m going to need a bigger greenhouse already.