This Girls New Greenhouse

About a month ago Dan and I discovered a nice little greenhouse at Big Lots for a reasonable price. We decided that since we would have a giant garden at Aelfheim to fill with plants, we should get that little greenhouse and start our own seeds.

Building it was like a gigantic tinker toy! Then Dan drove four fence posts into the ground to keep it from blowing away in the  nutty Missouri weather.  We secured it with zip ties and topped each fence post with layers of white foam packing material to keep any sharp edges from poking through the cover.

We put the cover on and secured the ties, it got hot in there really quickly!  Now we needed to get the seeds into trays! 

My mom had this cool planting station, since we're sharing the garden, she and Grandpa Gecko brought it over. They're right next door at Frogbirds Farm, so we're sharing this giant garden plot.  We found a great spot right outside one of the stables in the barn and went right to work. 

We had fun sorting seeds, filling trays, and getting those little babies ready to sprout!  We used two different kinds of trays, the traditional Jiffy trays with the disks that you add water to, mom said those were the kind my grandpa (my moms dad) used. He would have loved our garden set up. We also tried the new hex shaped trays with some Miracle Grow soil, they're supposed to help the little roots and make transplanting less stressful. We'll see which we like best.  We used plastic spoon handles to make markers, don't worry, we're recycling the other end of the spoons. I sometimes use paper plates, but not a fan of plastic utensils, I think someone gave me these years ago and I never used them. They make great markers for the seedlings.

And here are the first trays in the greenhouse! Just a few minutes after I put the trays in, the greenhouse got that lovely smell of moist earth, life and potential! Dan and I were married in a greenhouse (although a much bigger and more permanent one than this.)  I can't wait to see the little green leaves pop up from the soil.  Magic truly is all around!

Blessings,

Mickie