After last year's overgrown jungle, we knew that we needed a bigger greenhouse and Pat had a new, better design in mind for the dome hubs to use in building it. We even had a new design planned for a good flooring structure (Check out Kee Klamp - very cool), which was badly needed, as the old one crumbled and it was both frustrating and dangerous to do much of anything on the very sloped floor. However, as much as Dubya likes to think that the economy is picking up (it probably is for him), we're seeing none of it here, so these plans remain on the back burner, since they're pricey.

Then Spring began, and just as we started to wonder what on Earth to do with the (yet again) way too many plants that I started, some friends asked if we could use another greenhouse for the Summer - yes, indeed! So that's the smaller one in this photo. No new floor (the old one in the dome was just patched with sheets of plywood), but at least we got more space.

So we did some rearranging. Most tall, viney things are in the taller, dome greenhouse: tomatoes, one type of cucumber and pole beans. Needing both more horizontal and vertical space, we dropped the NFT trays nearer to the floor and spread them out, making the plants quite accessible. It's still a bit squished for my liking, and I suspect that by August we won't be able to walk down the aisles, but hell, we couldn't last year either : )

Even more tomatoes overwintered this year, but none came back for a 3rd year (see also our 2003 page.) The long-lived varieties this year: San Marzano, Arkansas Traveller, Fox Cherry, my Great Aunt Bea's Yellow Heritage and a Super Sioux that apparently didn't like being rearranged and started dying in June, covered in fruit. One pole bean plant also decided to come back (after being hacked to the root when it looked dead in Winter) and is currently huge and covered in blossoms.

We also have a long-lived cabbage! It was started last Winter (2002) and began bolting the following Summer but never flowered, so we let it go and it turned into a 6' tall (growing out the top vent) huge, branching plant with no compact heads but tasty leaves. We harvested the leaves all Winter (2003), and in the Spring of 2004 it finally started flowering, so we thought that it was done. But then there was that one little sprout at the base of the thick, woody stem! So I hacked it down, and we're waiting to see if the sprout keeps going.

Shorter things were moved into the smaller greenhouse: eggplant, peppers, basil and zucchini and there was room for one other type of cucumber. We've never had luck with cucumbers, so this year I'm trying hard to make them work, planting them in place (transplanting was too much of a shock) using only self-pollinating varieties (Glacier and Chelsea Prize) and keeping them in separate structures. I've always wanted to try hydroponic zucchini, and fear for the amount of fruit that will be produced. We'll probably have to hand-pollinate, in which case we can somewhat limit the output, but why would we want to?