As seasonal depression sets in, I realized
that I needed to do a few things to savor the rest of my summer favorites. So, before the first frost set in and all my
herbs say bye-bye to warm weather, I made the decision to keep them alive.
I live in Northern Virginia and the weather is a bit better
than where I grew up in New York. This
doesn’t mean the weather is nice enough for my herbs to stay alive through the
winter.
What's great about having wonderful neighbors next door is that if one of us discovers or creates something beneficial to our house, we share the idea. With their success of a greenhouse last winter, I ordered this greenhouse from Amazon because it as always, is very convenient. I got it in two days with free shipping with Amazon Prime. Gotta love Prime.
It took about 10 minutes to set this guy up. I didn’t need any tools according to the instructions, but I made some mods to the original design. No, there aren’t any pimped out rims, but I made it a bit brawnier. The wire shelving that came with the kit was not exactly the sturdiest. When placing it on the metal that goes the length of the green house for each shelf, I realized that it was not flush. I used black zip ties that I already owned to keep them in place. I used about seven on each shelf to keep them in place and there were a total of four shelves.
The green house was super easy to put together. After assembly, I carried it outside to the deck and lifted the herb planters
out of the deck boxes my husband built when he rebuilt the deck a few years back and placed them in the green house. I also put some left over tile from our kitchen, living room and bathroom tiling projects on the bottom to make the greenhouse bottom heavy. I don't want any crazy winds whipping around and this guy toppling over.
I have rosemary, garlic chives, chives, mint, and parsley that
were all still living from this summer. I
really wanted to salvage my basil, but it turned brown this past weekend. I already bought a plant and it is thriving in its outdoor sauna. The inside gets seriously hot from the sun during the day even when it's cold outside.
My biggest concern is that I forget to water the plants in
the greenhouse. I am really good about
watering when the weather is warm, but usually completely ignore my deck as
soon as the plants die and the furniture is put away under tarp for winter. I might need to put an alert on my phone to
remember to water.
On a side note, you
need to purchase a hug pack of the black zip ties (again, from Amazon) because they are super useful to have around the house for projects. I didn't realized how handy they were until this project. You can also pick them up locally at Home Depot or Lowe's if you forget to order them with the green house.
Is it too late to save your outdoor herbs?
<3 MK
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