Forty Years

                                                                                                                                                                           

Our little south-facing shed greenhouse has been an ongoing pleasure. It's been used mainly to overwinter things like lavender, rosemary, and bay, as well as various tender potted plants.

                                                                                     

In the early years, we attempted to grow tomatoes out of season but the results were pretty tasteless. For several years I grew Japanese cucumbers on trellises and they did quite well--till the year that something ate all the seedlings.  

                                                                                      

 

Now the deep soil bed is home to a Brown Turkey fig tree that seems to like its environment very well--I had to prune it back severely last fall to keep it from global domination.

Last fall I brought in a pot of dill and, to my surprise, it did well and provided me with fresh dill weed for my scrambled eggs etc. all through the winter and spring. It's looking kinda sad now, but I have two pots of dill on the porch, waiting to come inside in the fall.

When we first began to talk about adding a greenhouse using sliding glass door panels for glazing, a friend scoffed. All the homemade greenhouses he'd seen, he advised us, tended to self-destruct after about five years.

Well, it's true the little ventilation windows are getting a bit funky. (A fall project for John in the workshop.) But the date of construction, according to the record etched in concrete inside, is 1984. Forty years! 

(Bozozo Construction was the name of John's short-lived, ad hoc construction company that was hired to remodel a restaurant into a health clinic. Bozozo was what a very young Ethan called bulldozers. And the motto of the company was We're All Bozos on This Bus (cue Firesign Theater.)