New garden project

What do you get when you combine some wire shelving you got for free and about 15 bucks worth of plastic and clamps?





Instant greenhouse!

the Ace i used to work at sold the green one behind the new unit. heck of a lot more than the $5 you put into this one.

what are you growing?

Chili peppers. Hard to get them to heat up in the cool PNW without something like this.

Oh, and the little green one cost 2 or 3 times what I paid to put the big one together, and it's a piece of junk. Lists one one side if you put more than a couple plants on the upper shelves and the plastic started to tear towards the end of the first season.

i wasn't very impressed by them when i worked there. I've considered growing peppers, but i didn't want to get into the whole greenhouse thing.

Well, this was cheap and easy. The shelving unit was free. It had been used in a cafateria as a drying rack and was a bit rusted up, but perfect for this use. I'll be installing drip irrigation in the next week or so, so I won't even have to open it up for watering.

ChshreCat said:

Chili peppers. Hard to get them to heat up in the cool PNW without something like this.

Oh, and the little green one cost 2 or 3 times what I paid to put the big one together, and it's a piece of junk. Lists one one side if you put more than a couple plants on the upper shelves and the plastic started to tear towards the end of the first season.

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What kind?

TxBrew said:

What kind?

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So far... Habanero, Jalapeño, Cayenne, Serrano, Anaheim and Mulato Isleno. Might add a few more as I check out the nurseries in the area, but I already have a few dozen plants. Need to give some away so they'll all fit in there.

I have some bell pepper as well, but those can sit outside and do fine now.

www.pepperjoes.com has a great variety of seeds for the pepper lover

ChshreCat said:

So far... Habanero, Jalapeño, Cayenne, Serrano, Anaheim and Mulato Isleno. Might add a few more as I check out the nurseries in the area, but I already have a few dozen plants. Need to give some away so they'll all fit in there.

I have some bell pepper as well, but those can sit outside and do fine now.

Click to expand...

Mmmm peppers...we will enjoy them

Any problems with wind? Winds around here get strong in the spring and can last for days non stop. It will blow away anything not well secured (almost me), even then it will tear up the plastic. I built one on my deck, using a corner of my deck. It worked ok but but winds eventually ripped up the plastic, had to repair several times and it is trah now.

jgln said:

Any problems with wind? Winds around here get strong in the spring and can last for days non stop. It will blow away anything not well secured (almost me), even then it will tear up the plastic. I built one on my deck, using a corner of my deck. It worked ok but but winds eventually ripped up the plastic, had to repair several times and it is trah now.

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Dunno yet. Just set it up over the weekend. I don't think that blowing over will be an issue. The shelving unit has a pretty good sized footprint, plus we're going to be adding about 300 lbs of water on the bottom shelf for thermal mass. As for the plastic... I got some fairly heavy stuff, so we'll just have to see. I have it pulled tighter than it shows in the pics most of the time. That was when I had one side open.

Wind picked up pretty strong last night and pulled some of the plastic loose of the cheap clamps I was using.

Going to get some of these and things should work much better in the wind: http://www.creativeshelters.com/Canopy-Accessories/Fabric-Clips.aspx

ChshreCat said:

So far... Habanero, Jalapeño, Cayenne, Serrano, Anaheim and Mulato Isleno. Might add a few more as I check out the nurseries in the area, but I already have a few dozen plants. Need to give some away so they'll all fit in there.

I have some bell pepper as well, but those can sit outside and do fine now.

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That's a wide variety. Any plans for them?

TxBrew said:

That's a wide variety. Any plans for them?

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What I can't use up just in day to day cooking will be dried, pickled, salsa-ed and/or frozen for future use. I'm already saving up for a bunghole transplant sometime this fall.

ChshreCat said:

What I can't use up just in day to day cooking will be dried, pickled, salsa-ed and/or frozen for future use. I'm already saving up for a bunghole transplant sometime this fall.

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I grow hot peppers also. Last couple years went for extreme hot peppers (ghost chili/Fatali/etc) but have so much sauce and flakes don't really need to grow them this year. I am growing my standards for wing sauce which is cherry, jalapeno and large red cayenne. Have about 120 plants plus a few small multi colored peppers, about 12 plants. Oh, I grow Trinidad Perfume too, about 12 plants, they have fruity flavor like habenero but little to no heat. If I had to pick only one vegetable to grow it would be peppers.

I've got a ton of tomato plants going, so between those, the chilis and the bell peppers, I think I have a good start on some salsas. Wish I thought to plant tomatillos, but I'm not sure how they'd grow up here.

ChshreCat said:

I've got a ton of tomato plants going, so between those, the chilis and the bell peppers, I think I have a good start on some salsas. Wish I thought to plant tomatillos, but I'm not sure how they'd grow up here.

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I grew them once, must have grown 6' tall before falling over. Tried making salsa but I just wasn't into the flavor. But that was 30 years ago, I think I will pick some up and try making a green hot sauce and try again. I love that green hot sauce you get at Mexican resturants. I made green hot sauce with hot peppers and zucchini once came out ok.

I have about 80 tomato plants, about 6 types.

The secret to tomatillos, IMHO, is to roast them first. Get a bit of chat on 'em.

If the deal on our house doesn't fall apart, I am planning on a good sized garden for next year. Of course there will be plenty of peppers in there! At the moment all I have is a supermarket ginger rhizome that I sprouted and have planted in a pot on the patio of our rental.