Gardening at last!

I found a decent greenhouse at Sam's Club for only a hundred dollars.  I consider that a bargain for its size at 6' x 8' (1.8m x 2.4m) footprint with height enough to stand.  The really nice thing about the greenhouse was that it came in a nice little package that I could fit in my car.  I don't have a proper hauling vehicle, although my car gets the terrible gas mileage of one.  The greenhouse installed like a tent, including spikes to hold it down when the wind gets strong.

I repurposed the cardboard packaging into a raised garden bed inside the greenhouse.  The plot I am using is filled with rocks.  I dug down about a half foot for the base of the raised garden bad and sifted all the rocks out.  The first day I sifted dirt, I used my bare hands.  I found a lot of vibrant earthworms, but my hands were horribly dried out.  I left the greenhouse alone for about a week while I regained energy and cuticles.  The next time I sifted dirt, I used a shallow tub filled with water and a cheap colander.  I filled the colander with dry dirt, and dunked the colander in the tub.  After soaking it and swishing it around a while, I would be left with rocks and roots.  These I dumped outside the greenhouse.  Then I scooped up the dirt that sank to the bottom of the tub and put it in a container where I kept the sorted dirt.  I repeated this colander sifting process until I was thoroughly tired.  I still have dirt left to sift, but I had enough to mix in with my store-bought dirt.

I used the lasagna method to fill the garden bed once I set up the cardboard box.  I layered the bottom of the space with newspapers.  Then I put in a layer of really wet leaves that I composted over the winter.  Then I put in some store-bought garden dirt.  Then I put in some store-bought peat moss.  I put my hand sifted native dirt on top and repeated the layering with leaves, dirt, and peat moss.

Once I finished the garden bed, I planted seeds of baby carrots, beets, zucchini, and green onions.  I had about a 2' x 2' (0.6m x 0.6m) sized plot.  I had cut the greenhouse package in half, so I still have the other half to make another garden bed.  If the cardboard starts falling apart, I will shore it up with decorative stones.

I'm really glad I finally did this.  It took a lot of hard manual labor when I really didn't have much energy or willpower to go outside and do it.  Now at the very least, I can maintain this one garden bed and do what it takes to keep the plants alive and growing.  I realize that setting up a greenhouse at the dawn of a hot summer is not the best plan, but if I have to I can leave both doors open and hang a tarp over it to shade during the hottest part of the day.  I am really interested in finding either a solar fan or setting up a ridiculously overdone solar power grid to power a fan and misters.

After working with the greenhouse, I can see the real downer is that it has no screens.  It's either closed up and boiling hot, or open and filled with flying insects.  I have a roll of screen for fixing house window screens.  I'm thinking of McGyvering a removable screen door by combining the power of velcro and a hot glue gun.