I amused my eldest at lunchtime today when I said I was going to get changed so I could get “grubby in the greenhouse”. What I meant was that I wanted to give the greenhouse a good clean and I know how wet and grubby I get doing this.
In recent years I have cleaned out the greenhouse over the Christmas break which only makes sense in terms of having the time. However, it means moving all my tender plants out into the cold while I do the cleaning and sloshing water around on a cold day is not at all jolly so far from ideal.
Now I know from previous greenhouse posts that some readers will think my greenhouse is very tidy already. But it hasn’t had the glass cleaned for a good year and the cobwebs are becoming very troublesome. Also this is the only quiet weekend I have for the next month and I didn’t want to be in the situation of panicking when the weather suddenly gets cold and putting all my tenders away before I had a good clean out.
So everything was dragged out on to the patio, stuff thrown and a large bucket of soapy water employed to wash down the glass.
I had to laugh as I have been trying to get fern spores to germinate with no success but when I moved some of the staging out I had a lovely crop of ferns. I am wondering whether I should just chuck the spores I am trying to germinate on the greenhouse floor and wait and see. Because my greenhouse backs onto the retaining wall of the back garden the heat is reduced. This is helpful when the weather is hot and has created a good environment for the ferns to germinate but I have concluded that trying to grow tomatoes is pointless. I have tried for 3 years now and failed to get more than one or two ripe fruits. Cucumbers now are a different matter and they grow very well in my greenhouse so that’s what I shall stick to in future.
Anyway, having balanced on the step-ladder and retaining wall to wash down the outside and scrubbed the staging, I am quite pleased with my new shiny greenhouse.
Oh and I have put the heater in ready for the winter since I have to thread the cable under the staging so it made sense to do this now before the greenhouse gets full.
I need to put some fresh gravel in the gravel trays but then I can start moving the tenders in bit by bit.
All in all a good afternoon’s work.