The green houses are HOT!  40 degrees + Celsius when nearing mid-day. And, Yes, Uncle Mark, we added shade cloth and have planted several passion fruit vines (Brazil natives which really do love all that heat and humidity) to grow up and expand across the ceiling to act as living shade.

It is easier to work in the green house in the winter when it is cooler than sweat the day away in the summer. We have one working greenhouse where the seeds are planted and set on shelves and watered diligently.  Then the sprouted plants in boxes are moved outside to harden off and then the plants go into the garden bed.  Some plants are outside in a garden plot in a few weeks, others take several months.

The next two green houses have plants in the ground.  We have a drip line watering system and the rows are covered with mulch.  The mulch keeps the weeds down and keeps the soil from drying out quickly.

This past winter was a bit of a disaster garden which so we pretty much ignored the green houses all winter and had to prep the soil after pulling weeds this spring. To our surprise  we found a few plants that thrived on the neglect.

Bell peppers all year round. After summer in the markets, pickled peppers are the only kind one can purchase.  They show up cold on pizza too!

Megan left a volunteer tomato plant to grow in the green house and we had cherry tomatoes before any fresh tomatoes were in the market and and long before any of our plants outside even had fruit.  A little thing but it really lengthened the tomato season for us.

The last survivor of neglect was the Bulgarian Carrot Peppers – which are hot peppers. Excellent for hot salsa; way too spicy for me, but Jon loves it.