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Is it getting better?
This website was getting to be ungainly and difficult to maintain--like an unplanned city (commonly known as "Beaverton" in the area where I live). The improvements are intended to ultimately make the site easier to use. If you want to see what's new, you might not have to wade through the entire thing. Like items will be placed together (hey! what an idea!).
An extensive amount of new information is being added to the site. It's not all done yet by any means, but please take a look at what I'm offering thus far (including all those yet inactive links on the CONTENTS page). I am interested in what you think of this website, and what you would like to see here. Please contact me on earth@teleport.com
No answer from me yet? Look here.
Bounced mail
To: Mom02Boys@aol.com
Subject: BOSTON FERN
(See "Q & A - The latest" for answer.)
BOUNCED MAIL
To: bruker
You wrote:
>Hello. I`m interested in sherry-tomato or "baby"- tomato, how to grow
>them, where
>they are grown, countries, markeds and so on.
>Thank you for any answer.
Hello! Thank you for visiting my website. I believe you are referring to
"CHERRY" tomatoes which are very small in size (although I am really liking
the name "sherry-tomato"!).
I have never had a better tasting tomato (large OR small) than the tiny
tomato variety 'SWEET 100'. It is my absolute favorite--and the plants are
always vigorous and healthy. 'Sweet 100' grows well both in the greenhouse
and outside.
Are you interested in being a COMMERCIAL grower of these tomatoes, or is
this just a personal question? In a greenhouse or outside? WHERE ARE YOU?
WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
I do plan to write a piece about growing tomatoes. There is a lot involved.
I need to have more information from you to be able to help you. "How to
grow tomatoes" is a big question. Within the next month in my website I
plan to have a small piece about a commercial hydroponic grower of
tomatoes. Watch for that, too.
Meanwhile, tell me more about yourself, so that I may better help you. I wait to hear from you again.
Sherry
MORE BOUNCED MAIL
To: "michael d. shore"
Hi! Thank you for having this page. I am wanting to build a greenhouse
in the desert environment - Phoenix, Az. I want to be able to grow
medicinal herbs year round. What can you recommend for a cooling system
to keep the temp in the 70's year round? Also, what type of building
material to keep the temp stable and allow enough sun?
Kay Shore
Hello, Kay! Thank you for visiting my website. Did you read the "Sherry's greenhouse specifications" in my website? There is a lot of information there.
For cooling, the best way I've found is with a mist system (details in
"specs"). A fine spray of water cools air quickly. I would think, though, that you would find it very difficult to keeptemps that low in the greenhouse in Phoenix. Doesn't Phoenix have about 3
months worth of 100+ temps each year? Maybe a combination of insulation
(two layers of plastic separated by flowing air) plus a BIG fan plus a mist
system plus a bit of shade cloth strategically placed plus having a
pit-type greenhouse would work (see the "pit greenhouse discussion" in my
website).
Good luck with your greenhouse project. Please let me know how it goes if
you have a little time! Thanks!
Sherry
The most recent improvement to the greenhouse: automatic watering. We used about 200 feet of tubing and who knows how many little dribbling spouts (1/2 gal/hr, 1 gal/hr, and 2 gal/hr), so now watering is more consistent. Frankly, I've been so busy with other things, everything in the greenhouse would have died by now without that watering system. It also allows us to go away for a weekend without Sherry fussing over her plants.
A big decision has been made. I am not going to heat the greenhouse this winter. This past winter, we certainly did enjoy those vine-ripened tomatoes and extremely fresh lemons. However, that fresh produce did cost us about $20 per pound, I think, so unless the greenhouse is jam-packed with heavily producing vines, it's really not worth it to fight nature all winter.
I will use the greenhouse like a giant walk-in cold frame and grow real winter crops. It's a bit late to be starting that sort of thing, but it's ok--I can only start from now. Any suggestions as to what wonderful plants to grow? I'll be checking my Territorial Seed winter catalog, and I'll let you know what's next.
*** Cool nights now. This evening I checked the greenhouse and decided it's time the hibiscus came into the house, so here it is in a very large dark blue glazed pot with its very showing brilliant red flowers.
*** An amaryllis given to me last Christmas by friend Debra is now blooming--a beautiful creamy white. I told you we've had some cool nights--the amaryllis obviously thinks that it is winter, its normal bloom time.
*** Something else came into the house as well (last night)--my "herd" of worms! They number about 2000. Yes, I am now a very small scale worm rancher. After doing considerable research on the subject of vermicomposting, I decided to try a commercial worm bin rather than make my own. It's called [Excuse me, my husband has called me outside to listen to an owl in our yard. We live in a rather wild urban neighborhood. Coyotes have been seen a few yards from our house, and there has been a cougar sighted here in the west hills of Portland, Oregon, USA.]
*** Anyway, the commercial vermicomposting bin I'm trying out is called Can-O-Worms and is made in Australia from 100% recycled plastic. The brochure is a bit goofy, but humorous. It has cartoon drawings of worms with faces saying such things as, "Dig it!", "This is my can, man!", and "It's paradise." My worms seem happy indeed. This very moment they are munching away on last week's kitchen garbage.
*** There is almost no odor produced by this method. Just a slight "earthy" very pleasant smell when you lift the lid. The system consists of several round stacking trays. Level 1 is the "Collector Tray" which has legs and a spigot. Level 2 the brochure calls the "First Working Tray," but I call it the "First Residential Level"--it's their home, after all!
*** The general idea is to feed the worms until the first residential tray is filled. Then you put another residential tray on and put food there. The worms will naturally move upstairs where the food is. You keep repeating this process. (In a few years,worm population should increase to 15,000 to 20,000!) When the lowest residential tray is completely vacated, you simply take it and use your wonderful nutrient-rich worm castings on your garden and as part of your greenhouse potting soil mix.
*** As I learn more about my worms, so will you (with regular visits to my website).
Subject: Re: Desert greenhouses
You wrote:
Sherry,
spock@netzone.com
What's in the greenhouse NOW?
Here's the general picture (details later): LOTS of tomatoes, melons, cucumbers. A lemon tree, a few sweet pepper plants, a passionflower vine, 3 orchids, a 'Zuchetta Rampicante' that is taking over, alpine strawberries, a clivia, at least 10 Venus Flytrap plants, an orchid cactus that is getting BIG.....
What I've Been Up To Lately.
We've been enjoying lots of tomatoes (since June), while outside the first ones are now ripe. This is the first time that I've grown melons. So far a variety called 'Early Black Rock' is my favorite (very juicy, few seeds). I got those seeds from J. L. Hudson, Seedsman, Star Route 2, Box 337, La Honda, CA 94020 USA. The French Charantais melons have also produced well. I tried growing a watermelon--it doesn't like it in the greenhouse a bit. I DO have a watermelon fruit outside though, smaller than a soccer ball, but larger than a baseball.
New features to come
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World Wise Soap
I'm not just a gardener--I also make very fine soap! A sample could be yours if
you jump to the soap page and do a little reading.
You'll be very glad you did just that. You need a luxurious soap now to make
your gardeners' hands feel great and smell even better.
Please send any comments or suggestions to Sherry on sherry@sherrysgreenhouse.com
http://www.teleport.com/~earth/ -- Revised 15 November 1996
Copyright © 1996, Sherry's Greenhouse
sherry@sherrysgreenhouse.com
This is the old version of "Sherry's Greenhouse"
(Click for current version.)
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