Crickets Greenhouses 2007

Hey everyone.
Sorry I been absent.
I have been so busy. I have an internet friend who came down to Alabama from Michigan to
learn more about sowing, germinating, and transplanting in the greenhouse.
She is here for 4 weeks.

Anyway. This year I have doubled what I grew last year.

Growing total this year: 650 hanging baskets, 1400 6 inch pots, 1000 4 inch pots, 700 flats, 300 1 gallon, 20 14" bowls, 10 5 gallon pots.

Gonna show you some pics. I have so many, I don't know where to start.

Greenhouse #1

Greenhouse #2

from one end view

tomato seedlings that will be transplanted next week . about 8000 seedlings.

dont ask where i will put them cause i have no idea yet. AKKKKKKKKKK.
4000 seedlings are already sold, just gotta have them ready by April 15.

I desperately need another greenhouse for plant sales. Only have 2 greenhouses for plant sales.
Have 20x96 for growing tomato produce in(GH #3)

WOW everything looks wonderful!
You are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your friend should have picked me up on the way
i have family in alabama!

lol, that would have been one crazy long slumber party.

I am making signs for the greenhouse this week. better than old signs.

cricket

Wow Cricket and I was worried about the 30+ pepper seedlings I have yet to pot up plus the 40+ tomatoes. You are amazing.... Becky

well, my visiter from the north has went home now. I cut the visit short. I was ready for things to be normal again.

I have almost transplanted all those tomatoes. I have a couple of flats left to trans.

Then i turned around and sowed some more. Not as many as the first batch.

I will take pictures in a few days.

Happy Gardening!

Cricket

Cricket, what do you have in the 4 and 6 inch pots? Do you start things in the baskets that you will sell there, or are they transplants? Legit

i am growing all sorts of plants in the 4 inch. balsam, cockscombs, hollyhocks, tomatoes, peppers,
same things in the six inch pots, but few more things, hibiscus, pampas grass, foxglove, young crepe mrytle trees, petunias, marigolds, dwarf zinnias, dwarf sunflowers.

I transplant older plants into my baskets. I started my petunias in Jan for the baskets, but didnt put them in the baskets until March5th.

Petunias in Baskets as of March 29th.

current pic of tomatoes in flats

thats just a small portion in the picture.

GH #1

GH #2 from ceiling view

and GH #3

tomato produce house---yep i had a mess but its cleaned up now.

WOW zone envy! everything looks great!!!

Looks simply wonderful to me, I wish I were at that point already! Maybe by next year I'll have at least one gh!! Legit

I must of gave those tomatoes some secret ingredient. (antient indian secret?)
three days after last picture.

what is your variety and plant spacing do you cage or stake or what
nice photo

I run a heavy duty clothes line wire down the top of the greenhouse and tie the tomatoes up on strings up to that clothes line.
I grow Single Stem tomato plants. Each plant is trimed to only one stem. It's better control of the vines and all the tomatoes on that one vine are more uniform in size.
So---- Example:::::Where as some folks would grow one tomato plant with 15 vines on one plant and have many differant sizes and it looks like a spider web, I grow 15 individual single vined tomato plants neatly in a row 6 inches apart for plenty of light and air---a double row---- and tomatoes are mostly one size all the way up the vine. Also you have to trim the blossom buds to the same amount per cluster to get most of the tomatoes the same size.
Varieties are:::::::::Big Beef (#1) Better Boy, Pink Brandywine, Beefmaster, Sweet Million Cherry in that greenhouse.
Picture three days after last one------sorry , its kinda dark, end of the day.

Brandywine Pink

very healthy.

they look great thanks for the info

Greenhouse update pictures. yep its a mess and i have some cleaning up to do.

tell me about your planting medium for transplants - you must buy it in bulk - or do you make it yourself? What do you use? When I was a kid I worked for an old guy who had a greenhouse & landscape business - he made his own soil - I don't know what went into it - I do know that whenever there was nothing else for me to do, there always a pile of dried up manure I could screen so he could put the fine screenings into his mixes.....

I really dont have time to mix my own soil. I use ProMix--Bx. And yes i buy it in bulk.
I bought 50 bales and that wasnt enough. I need 6 to 10 more bales and that still would not be enough but thats all im gonna buy this year.

how do you vent your 20 x 96 greenhouse for your tomatoes?
open the ends and or roll up sides ?
or pwereed fans and shutters?
i use two big fans and two intake shutterson a thermostat

all of the above lol.
yes, open ends, we still have to make my side curtains and waiting for it to heat up and stay that way before we do them.
I have one thermo fan but it needs repairs. A belt and a shutter. It was given to me.
I will most likely take the poly off the greenhouse in July and put a 30% shade cloth on the house. It gets really hot here in the summer. I will end the tomato crop end of Aug or first of Sept.

Everything is blooming nicely in the greenhouses.

April 12 picture

Those plants were little sprouts a week and a half ago. Now they are huge - and I can only imagine how big they'll be next week. How do you do it???

tender loving care
fertilizer
water

i use a special fertilizer mix. a combination of someone elses and some of my own.
I use mittleider magic nutrients which are missing nutrients in our fertilizers , I order it online at http://www.foodforeveryone.org
I mix the mittleider magic mix which is 8 oz baggie, plus 20 pounds of 13-13-13, plus 3 pounds of epsom salt, plus 3 pounds of calcium nitrate. Mix well. then put one teaspoon per plant per week.
I have to fertilize again tomorrow. Its been longer than a week for me cause i didnt want to fertilizer during our freeze snap.
I think the calcium nitrate adds a real nice boost to the plants. It gives them the calcium they need and nitrogen for nice green plant. And I dont give them alot either.

Do you use that on your hanging baskets too? I'm growing mostly flowers, and I fertilize every week but I sure don't have growth anywhere near what you're getting!

I use Osmocote or something simular on my hanging baskets. It is a 3 month slow release fertilizer. I put about 2 teaspoons in the center of the baskets. Then I make sure I water in the center of the baskets. So all my seedlings in the baskets are placed 2 inches from the edge of the basket leaving the center vacant for fertilizer.

Thanks - I'm gonna try that.

is the green house you are growing tomatoes in a atlas 20' Wide RT Cold Frame

if so what is your bow spacking , 4', 5' or 6'?

how easy is it to put up

?
been looking qt them

thanks

I have been watching with interest as well, I need something at home since we are demolishing our old barn this summer. I want to have a hoop house set up for hay storage for the horses, and I figure by the time I want to use it in the spring, it will be empty or almost empty.

I am trying to determine is the money saved by making one of these cattle panel hoop houses is worth the extra work over an atlas hoop house that we have everything we need to just put it up, as we don't have much spare time. Time and money, they strike such a balance, don't they? Legit

Yes from Atlas, Yes 20 ft wide hoop house.
Yes easy to put up.

4' bow spacing?

we dont get any snow so I put my hoops 6 feet apart.


tomato greenhouse todate

wow ver impressive so when is the first tomato?

estimated ripe tomato around June 8th. Just around the corner.

I have a few tomatoes that will be ripe in couple of days but not enough to Ring the Bells.

Where? I can not see the tomato, where is it? Lots of leaves. Is it really there? Hard to tell.

Just whatis the ringing of the bell, is this some kind of ritual for the first of the harvest or what?