Our Greenhouse

[Dog Dancer]

Thought I'd post a pic of our greenhouse because 14+ was asking me about it. We have about 500 tomato plants started right now, as well as some geraniums (which should have been started months ago). Also have a kaki tree (Italian for persimon), the tree is new and will go into the garden once the weather settles into spring. Hubby gives the tomatoes away to all his friends every year, although we normally keep about 50.

[14+kitties]

Nice setup!! Hubby did a good job building that for you. And him seeing as it sounds like he spends a lot of time in there too!! Tomatoes look like they are doing well. It's great to see the little geranium seedlings popping up their sprouts. Now it's a matter of patience. You may not get plants big enough to put out this year but if you keep the greenhouse heated all winter you can take cuttings over the winter and be set to go next spring!! Exciting!!!! Now I want to go to work in mine.......

[hazelrunpack]

What a wonderful greenhouse!!! I wish I had one. Not that it would help my success rate with seeds, though But it would be nice to have the tomato season last a little longer.

Holy catz! I can't believe how many tomato plants you have! Three or four give us more than we can handle.

[growler~GateKeeper]

Holy moly that's a lot of tomato plants Are they all the large tomatos or do you have the tiny tim-like ones too? Do you stick with all the same variety or a couple of different ones?

My dad puts 4-6 tomato plants in his garden mostly tiny tim sized ones usually 1 or 2 are varieties he hasn't done before trying to find the "best" tiny tomato variety

[Goldfields]

I knew I'd be insanely jealous of your greenhouse, dog dancer, before I ever saw a photo of it. I want it so much. LOL. Fantastic set-up. My sister has both a greenhouse and a hothouse, but also a hubby who is a builder. I had 40 different varieties but also grew some for other people, and with extras given to me by a friend who does have a glasshouse, ended up with 60 or more plants in the ground. I am dying to know what sort you grow, possibly tomatoes I have never heard of. Can't imagine looking after 500, although if my hubby shared the work it'd be easy. Our garden is solely my domain really. He occassionally helps with very heavy work. He doesn't eat tomatoes by the way , I though do enjoy them very much and loved seeing all the strange shapes and lovely colours. I'm almost finished collection seeds for this season(thank heaven.)

[Dog Dancer]

Thanks for the compliments on the greenhouse. Hubby will be happy to hear them. The gardening is entirely hubbies domain though, not mine. I help with stuff, but it's his baby. He has a watering system set up with a small tube and valve that he waters with. We keep all our herbs and some of our larger outdoor potted plants in there through the winter, so it's always heated, but not necessarily hot. I have the hydro bills to prove it. Yes we run a grow op, but it's a tomato grow op officer!

Two years ago we had a really bad summer and of our 40-50 tomato plants I don't think we had six red tomatoes all summer. Last summer we had sooooo many tomatoes, and they were so big (someone asked me if they were pumpkins!). All my neighbours would hide when they saw me coming with a bag of tomatoes.

I am not sure what type of tomatoes he grows. He collects the seeds from friends who have good tomatoes. Some are very large, he does not do any of the cherry type tomatoes at all. We have some Roma tomatoes also, but with all the bee's flying around we get many that are cross polinated plants and who knows what you're getting! It's always a surprise in my garden.

This summer he's going to plant his garden but he'll be away for all of August so guess who's going to be in charge then?? Me!!!

Heaven help me, that's also when the bee hives are full of honey and very hard to lift and move for inspections and such. He normally helps me with that, but he won't be here. I hope my back holds out. When the honey supers are full they weight about 100 lbs and are hard to move, especially if they're stuck to a second one, with 75,000 bee's coming out to ask "Hey what you doing with my winter dinner???"

[Dee-O-Gee]

I'm jealous!

to hubby and his wonderful hobby!

[Love4himies]

Holy smokes, what a great greenhouse . Nothing tastes better than a freshly picked tomato

[Goldfields]

Originally Posted by Dog Dancer

Two years ago we had a really bad summer and of our 40-50 tomato plants I don't think we had six red tomatoes all summer. Last summer we had sooooo many tomatoes, and they were so big (someone asked me if they were pumpkins!). All my neighbours would hide when they saw me coming with a bag of tomatoes.

I am not sure what type of tomatoes he grows. He collects the seeds from friends who have good tomatoes. Some are very large, he does not do any of the cherry type tomatoes at all.

Since I started growing heirloom tomatoes we haven't had a good year, but this is okay as at the moment I am only growing them for ourselves and for fresh seed. Mine are from all over the world. Like Giant Belgium(big, juicy and sweet), Gregori's Altai(Siberia I think), Russian Lime and Anna Banana Russian, Arkansas Traveller, Cherokee Purple(one of the top tomatoes) etc. etc. I have only two cherry tomatoes I like so far and they are Pink Ping Pong(exact size of a ping pong ball, perfect globe shape) and Snow White, a delicious little cherry tomato that rarely gets from the bush to the house. I like the odd shaped ones like Monomakhs Hat - in that I had a perfect heart shaped tomato, about an inch through - or Kalmans Hungarian Pink, best described as a fat squiggle. LOL. For beauty(as in roses) I love the bicolour, Copia, striped red and yellow. I've got them in all colours now, purple, red, pink, yellow, orange, white, black, green when ripe, and I honestly have not come accross a red tomato I like as much as the other colours. Some of the tomatoes your hubby grows, Dog Dancer, could look red but be pinks, it is only when you scrape the flesh off the skin that you know. Yellow skin means they are red, clear means they are pink. I had to laugh at your neighbors hiding from you and you tomatoes but all the same, they must appreciate not having to go out and buy them.
I think you are extremely brave looking after bee hives by the way. Even if they didn't like stinging me, we couldn't have them here, hubby is a bit allergic to them.