We did have great success with tomatoes. Some success with beans and peppers.
And Margie’s flowers always thrive inside.
By Mike Johnson
We had the greenhouse constructed in 2017.
It was inspired by walipinis, which are pits dug in the ground to grow food.
The earth mass around them moderates temperatures to extend the growing season on both ends of the calendar.
They are predominately used in Central and South America.
We live in high desert with low rainfall, short growing season, high winds, occasional hail, moderate to severe winters and lots of big and small wild animals.
Our growing zone is between 4 and 5.
So an outside garden has low probability of providing a crop.
We had success with an outside garden at our hobby farm in Minnesota.
We produced corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, radishes, carrots and potatoes.
The wild raspberry patches were prolific with no help from us.
The soil was rich and rain was plentiful.
Little watering was required.
Nature did its thing and food grew well.
But when we brought the entire operation indoors in Wyoming, success was not so easy.
Purchasing and mixing your own soil is a rodeo.
Garden store dirt sometimes carries fungus or blight stowaways that infect your entire greenhouse.
Or it can arrive in the air or on purchased plants.
Outbreaks required fanatical cleaning and replacing the soil twice.
We did have great success with tomatoes.
Some success with beans and peppers.
And Margie’s flowers always thrive inside.
We take the pressure off by calling our efforts “the science experiment.”
But growing food inside is WORK.
We didn’t grow anything at all this summer to let us, the greenhouse and the soil rest.
A simple hoop tunnel or hoop house would provide most of what our greenhouse provides.
As long as the world holds together, gardening is a hobby.
In our case, an expensive hobby where the food grown will never pay for the building.
But like every other worthwhile construction, the learning, experience, enjoyment and beauty make up the difference.
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