Are your tomatoes plants wilting?

Have your greens gone to seed?

Hot summer days call for drastic heat mitigation measures when it comes to greenhouse gardening. Lucky for us mountain dwellers, we only have to deal with the dog days of summer for a few weeks out of the year. The rest of the time, we praise our greenhouses for extending the season through both the early and late frosts.

As a high-altitude greenhouse gardener, you may have overlooked the need to cool things down due to extreme heat. But, when outdoor temperatures reach 80° F or above, indoor greenhouse temperatures can climb well over 100° F. This can cause even heat-tolerant veggies, like tomatoes and peppers, to drop their flowers or produce sterile pollen.

With a few simple measures, however, you can avoid this problem, as well as others like uneven ripening and sun-scalded fruit.

1- Location. Location. Location. Before you even start the growing process, choose a place for your greenhouse that already receives natural shade. Existing trees and shrubbery, your house, or an outbuilding can all act as a sunblock during the heat of the day. If your yard gets exposure to direct sun, you may want to situate your growing space in the northeast corner of your property, rather than the southwest.

2- Remember, heat rises. Ceiling vents are one of the most efficient ways to cool your greenhouse down fast. Install crack vents that can be opened with a pole or heat-activated vents that open automatically when the mercury inside rises.

3- Enlist the help of shade cloth. Woven cotton or polyester shade blocks are highly effective at regulating greenhouse temperatures. With a looser fabric weave, you can deliver full-time sun at just the right amount to produce a fruitful harvest without overheating your plants. A tightly-woven cloth, however, can dampen your yield unless you situate it properly or raise and lower it throughout the day like a curtain.

4- Create flow-through venting. New gardeners should opt for a greenhouse that has a door on one end and either another door, a window, or a large vent on the opposite end. A flow-through breeze acts similarly to the wind activity your plants would experience outside in their regular habitat. Plus a slight rustle helps acts as a pollinator.

5- Turn on the fan. The hottest days are usually wind-free, and that’s when it’s time to break out the fans. Fans placed near doors on the floor can bring in cool air, while fans placed in the rafters can blow hot air out of ceiling vents. Just be sure to turn off your fans at night when the mountain temperatures plummet.

6- Damp it down. An ingenious, and sometimes overlooked, way to cool off your greenhouse is by raising the inside humidity. Now, that doesn’t mean overwatering. It simply involves the act of hosing down the structures inside your greenhouse. Hose off the walkway, the planter boxes, and other hard surfaces once in the morning and once at night.

Like with anything gardening, it takes diligence to keep extreme heat from hurting your cherished plants. But, with a keen greenhouse design and a few mid-summer habits, you can prevent Mother Nature’s wrath when she turns up the heat.

Finding connection during socially distant times—whether it’s to the earth, to family, or to friends—makes you feel whole. And while spending time in the garden can certainly fill your cup, celebrating the fruits of your labor is equally as rewarding.

This weekend, evoke connection by hosting a summer picnic with treasures from your garden or your local farmer’s market. The prep work is easy and with a full picnic basket you can jaunt off to your favorite mountain sanctuary for a family reprieve. Enjoy!

Harvest Picnic Menu:

Antipasto Plate

Crusty 460 Bread

New Potato and Bean Salad

Summer Berries and dark chocolate

A bottle of rosé wine (French or Italian)

Spindrift sparkling water

For the Antipasto Plate, arrange the following on a wooden cutting board:

1 round of sheep’s milk brie or chevre (we like Lark’s Meadow Farms’ Cloud Veil)

1 chunk of sharp white cheddar cheese

460 Bread baguette, sliced or torn

An assortment of cured meats

Olives (we like Jeff’s Natural Castelvetrano—available at Jackson Whole Grocer or Barrels and Bins)

Summer berries from your garden

French New Potato and Bean Salad

2 pounds         new potatoes, assorted colors

1  pound          green beans fresh from the vine

1 can               Great Northern beans, drained

2 tbls               fresh parsley, chopped

                        Salt and pepper to taste

For the dressing:

3 cloves           fresh garlic

2                      anchovy filets

2 teas.             Dijon mustard

4 tbls.              Red wine vinegar

1/3 cup            extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

1. Slice each potato in half and place in a pot of salted water to cover. Bring to a boil for 20-30 minutes or until the potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork, yet still firm. Drain and cool.

2. Trim the ends of the green beans and place them in a steamer pot. Steam for 3-5 minutes until tender but firm. Remove from steamer and rinse with cold water in a colander.

3. Rinse and drain the Great Northern beans.

4. Combine garlic, anchovies, mustard, vinegar, and olive oil in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth.

5. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, toss with dressing, cover, and refrigerate until serving.

Don’t forget plates, cups, utensils, and a special someone or three. ❤️

Let’s be honest.  Jenn and Nick Marlar’s COVID project makes us rethink our protocol of sitting around in our jammies eating cookies and cake during the stay-at-home order. Especially because, only months later, their family is already reaping the benefits of the DIY greenhouse they built on their property in Victor, Idaho.

“This project gave me something to occupy myself with during COVID,” says Jenn. Being immunocompromised, she admits she was a little anxious about the pandemic hype. “I wasn’t motivated to go up in my studio and make jewelry, but planting seeds kept me busy. I occupied my brain researching gardening tips and reaching out to my friends who already had greenhouses. I learned so much!”

Jenn’s vegetable growing hobby started eleven years ago in the yard of the couple’s starter house where their roof would deposit rainwater into her makeshift raised bed.

“It drove Nick crazy when the rain made a stream through the garden bed,” she explains.

So, at the first frost, he ripped it out and promised that someday he’d build her the best greenhouse ever. That dream came true this March when the family’s spring break trip to Mexico was canceled. Instead, they used the trip money to build a greenhouse on their own.

Nick, a perfectionist (according to Jenn), started drafting—and then re-drafting—plans for a 10- by 12-foot greenhouse. He studied several different GrowHuts models, as well as those of a Montana-based greenhouse builder, to come up with his plans. Next, he sourced 6- by 6-inch timber skids for the base and 4- by 4-inch timbers for the framing.

“I like to overbuild things—and it’s a little bit overbuilt,” explains Nick, noting that the timber skids would allow the structure to be mobile should he need to relocate it in the future.

Nick sourced the polycarbonate greenhouse siding from GrowHuts and waited patiently for it to arrive (shipping was delayed due to COVID). All the while, Jenn bought seeds from MD Nursery in Driggs and used the heated floors and a sunny window in her home to incubate and sprout them. Currently, the raised beds in their family’s greenhouse contain peppers, lettuce, zucchini, strawberries, squash, basil, and parsley, and five-gallon buckets on the floor hold four different strains of tomatoes.

“Right now we have a three-foot-long zucchini and it’s only June!” says Jenn.

All said and done, it took Nick about forty working hours to lay the foundation of crushed rock and pea gravel, build the base and the frame, and install the polycarbonate paneling. He’s still in the process of making tweaks and adding features like the four temperature-controlled venting windows (two on each gabled end and two in the roof) that he installed just this week. The nifty vents operate through a mercury expansion method that opens them when it’s hot and closes them automatically when the day cools off.

When asked what advice he’d give to another prospective greenhouse builder, Nick replies, “Don’t build your greenhouse in a totally exposed location. Some days, it’s a scorcher in there. Our greenhouse was registering over 100 degrees before I installed the roof vents.”

Instead, Nick recommends situating your greenhouse among trees that can act as shade blocks during certain times of the day or planting mature trees around the outside of your structure.

Jenn and the couples’ six-year-old daughter Aniston are already enjoying the first harvest from their garden beds. They go out every morning to sample the lettuce and pluck strawberries right from the vines.

“I think I’ll have way more veggies than our three-person family will be able to eat,” says Jenn. “My friends will be getting tons of greenhouse gifts this summer.”

That’s a big feat for someone who claims she wasn’t really an intrinsic gardener before her husband built this structure. But a little research and some extra spare time have proved fruitful for this family, as they’ll most definitely be harvesting produce right up until the holidays.

Interested in building your own greenhouse?

At GrowHuts, we’ll get you started by providing you with the materials you need and the advice of expert builders. Contact us for more information.