April In The Greenhouse

The greenhouse soil has worked hard in the summer heat, and needs a bit of love before planting the next lot of crops out.

Create space

As long as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and aubergines are still producing, leave them in for handy little harvests. Give them a big clean up though, to free up space at their base.

Remove as many ratty, older, yellow, pest-y or diseased foliage as you can and pluck any foliage that’s shading flowers and fruits who need the extra light and airflow on these shorter, cooler days.

• If space is at a premium, you can cut tomatoes off at the base, leaving the nourishing roots behind in the soil, and hang the plants upside down in the greenhouse or on a porch where they’ll continue to ripen.
• Another alternative is to use the unripe fruits in green tomato pickles, sauces et al. There will at some point, in my house, be fried green tomatoes for lunch – my fav.

Bring back the moisture!

If soils dry (and chances are that it is), you’ll need to rehydrate it to get the microbes back.

Soils that are really dry may take a few soaks to become properly moist. Water until puddles show, then rest it for a few hours or over night and repeat until your soil test shows you its perfectly moist.

If soils beyond dry – it will repel water and liquid will run right off the top. In this case crack the hydrophobic surface by making shallow drills along the bed. Water the drills a few times, resting between each, before watering the whole bed. As the water pathways re open and clay particles swell, the soil will start accepting water again.

Feed it up

Nothing beats a fresh layer of compost. Spread it on as thickly as possible – atleast 2cm in a greenhouse and ideally over the whole bed.

If you don’t have enough for the whole bed, no worries, here’s some ideas:

• A dollop of compost for each new plant + crimson clover or any other nitrogen fixing greencrop + phacelia (greencrop) seed sprinkled on the un-composted bits between.
• A dollop of compost for each seedling and trench foodscraps or better yet bokashi between plants.
• Extend your homemade compost with any other decomposed organic matter you have to hand – well rotten manure, worm castings, the wormy soil beneath the firewood pile – mix it altogether and spread it on. I call this cheats compost and its served me very well over the years.

Boost the microbes

Saturate the prepared soil with something to stir the soil life into action. This little pre plant booster is so very good, especially if your soils dried out. Use whatever you have to hand.

I love a biological brew. But its not the only option:

• worm juice
• activated compost tea
• liquid comfrey
• organic blackstrap molasses + organic whole milk – both of which inspire a flush of biology. Dissolve 1T molasses in warm water and stir it into a 50/50 ish mix of water and organic, whole milk.

Plant + Sow

There’s heaps of cool things you can plant in the autumn greenhouse. It depends, of course, on what you want to eat + what the temperature is at yours.

• Quick leafy’s like saladings, bok choy, gai lan or spinach will grow speedily in the warmth.
• Dwarf beans are another excellent option at this time of year.
• Beetroot
• Spuds in buckets
• Celery, because going under cover prevents rust.
• Basil is a punt worth taking – if it suddenly gets too cold and comes to nothing, ah well!

If your chooks will be coming into the greenhouse in winter, group your new crops together by the door so you can get to them and at the same time screen them off from your chickens marauding feet.

Sow as many greencrops as you can fit in, beneath taller crops and finishing crops or in any remaining space. They’ll provide a nourishing feed for the soil and a most useful diversification from solanaceae (toms/ pepper/ aubergine) crops. Mustard, buckwheat, daikon and phacelia is my go to mixture. If your chooks will be coming into the greenhouse in winter, this will provide them plenty of organic matter to turn into the soil. Such easy, high value fertility!

If you are chicken-less and weed burden is high, simply grab your Niwashi shark and slash the weeds at the base and lay them back down as mulch.