Life in the Garden Part 26: The greenhouse effect

This spring I found a cheap greenhouse for sale at Molbaks. It was rickety, but it worked and only cost about $50. I used it for my basil seedlings and had some great results. Even though the walls were basically shower curtains, it was good for the plants. When it was 75 degrees on the deck it would be over 100 degrees in the greenhouse. I saw it get as high at 125 degrees one day.

My sage plants demonstrate the impact.

I grew all these from the same batch of seeds, and started them at the same time. Both planters went out on the deck at the same time. But after a couple weeks, I put one of the planters in the greenhouse. After about 4 weeks in the greenhouse, the plants really took very different shapes.

The green house sage grew taller and thinner. The leaves became narrower. The outdoor sage preferred to develop in a squatter fashion.

If only it had occurred to me to do this for my 6th grade science project.



Outdoor sage



Greenhouse sage



Outdoor sage



Greenhouse sage