When i first began the project of adding grow lights to the greenhouse, i very much didnt know where to start. I was overwhelmed with which lights to pick and where to get them from. There were so many options. How was i to know which would be good for what i needed them for? A neighbor said the project really wouldnt be that hard and suggested a brand i order off amazon.com. I took his advice and ordered ten lights. When he had some spare time, my neighbor came over to get the grow lights set up and hanging.
I thought they should hang directly over the plant boxes, lengthwise in the direction that they were facing, so the light would be evenly distributed as much as possible directly over the plants. My neighbor asked me if i had any lumber. I did have plywood. I produced the plywood i had in the shed. He just shook his head. He said we needed lumber, like 2 by 4’s. I said we could go get some at home depot and come back to finish the project another day. He shook his head again. He didn’t want to come back another day. He wanted to finish the project now. He said that we wouldnt be able to hang the lights lengthwise the way i had envisioned because we needed lumber to cut and put in between the wood beams of the ceiling or there’d be nothing to put the hooks into. He told me there would be plenty of light for the plants if he hung the lights the opposite direction of the lengthwise boxes. So, he put the hooks where he wanted them in the existing ceiling beams and the lights hung across the plant boxes width wise instead of lengthwise. The plants never did get enough light and they were stunted and eventually wilted or molded and died. For years i struggled to grow anything for very long (besides spinach) in the greenhouse. Then one day my friend and her daughter were over helping socialize a new batch of baby chickens and she asked me what i was talking about when i said that my neighbor said the lights couldn’t be hung lengthwise. I told her thats what he said and she stared at me with a look of confusion. She asked me if she could try something with the ladder because she was pretty sure they could be. I said sure and fetched the ladder. So she and her daughter set about promptly moving the location of about half of the hooks into the ceiling beams and now all my grow lights are hung lengthwise in synchrony with the plant boxes below. She shook her head and said, “Men.” I was stunned, and super grateful, because i had just taken his word for it when he said hanging the lights lengthwise was impossible. I suppose i should have just used my eyeballs. You can place both hooks in the same beam or you can put one hook in one beam and the other in another. You can hang the lights width wise or length wise. For the first time in its entire life, the greenhouse is actually working pretty well! It’s actually functional! I am so grateful that my friend does not take the professionals’ word as gold. I heard a quote once that reminded us noah’s ark was built by amateurs and the titanic by professionals. I think the message was, certification isnt everything, and one shouldnt be afraid to try their hand at things they dont necessarily have paper certification in. I am so lucky my friend looks at the world as a series of problems to solve because had she not pointed it out i would have gone on living with a barely functional greenhouse for ten or fifteen more years.
Under the newly turned grow lamps the tomatoes took off in a way that had me raising the lights two chain links every other day. They were thriving and requiring regular watering, which meant they actually dried out and didn’t mildew.
Soon the sungold tomatoes started turning color and i realized we had finally done it! The Iron Rose Homestead finally had a functional greenhouse.
Emboldened by this new progression of events, i drove back to the plant nursery and picked up 15 okra plants. This year i would not waste time and money on plants i wasnt sure i could keep alive. This year i went for the tried and true tomatoes and okra that i knew would do well and could be pollinated by myself instead of the bees.
The okra plants were in but they were much smaller than the tomato plants and would take their time getting to a point of maturity where they began flowering.
In the meantime, i started picking little tomatoes around every 3 days. They were good. Sweet but not too sweet; still a little sour kick to them in there alongside the sweet. I could not wrap my head around the idea that i had a functional garden.
