Read by Pat and Becky Stone

EEvery greenhouse has its dark side … the corner that doesn’t get much light, where the moss grows in the cracks. And every greenhouse story does, too. At least ours does! Here it is.

PROLOGUE:

It’s December, way up in the Pacific Northwest, a few years ago. Winter daylight lasts from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Note I said daylight, not sunlight. The rainy sky turns charcoal at 9 a.m., brightens to pewter at noon, and dims back to charcoal at about 4 p.m. The seed catalogs fill the mailbox right after Christmas, some with greenhouse kits pictured in the back, which is a little dangerous.

One corner of the frosty yard looks especially barren. It has a deep vein of pure clay, and a plum tree that has withered. I imagine a greenhouse there. I grab a catalog full of beautiful pictures. The phone is in my hand and before I realize what’s happening, I’m talking to a salesman. “Of course,” he says, “You can design any greenhouse you’d like. You can even put everything on automatic timers and take a two-week vacation.”

Sold!

So begins “Scenes From a Winter Greenhouse,” a play in two acts:

AACT ONE, Winter One:

Scene One:

After finally deciding on what we need and ordering a greenhouse kit in June, it is delivered near Halloween. It has 2,500 parts. Problem is, 500 parts on the list are missing, and there are an extra 700 parts in the boxes, not on the list. A few calls back and forth and we have the correct parts list—and parts. Whew.

It takes three men and one home gardener several days to put up the supports, the aluminum frame, the skin, and inner layers and then level it, as well as riveting the frame together (not ribbet-ing—the tree frogs are steering clear of the action).

The day it is finished, the doors are still not attached, and it starts to rain. We throw a huge tarp over the greenhouse, in the rain, anchoring it with tent stakes and bungie cords, trying to keep the rain from blowing through the open maw in the front. The wind blows, the rain falls, and the tarp flaps in the wind for six straight months. Six! Thank God my husband had packed down and levelled the soil so well. By Spring, the greenhouse has settled only ¾ of an inch, in one corner—not bad.

Here are just a few of the additional parts that are packed in every greenhouse kit. Well, should be:

• The phone number for a mental health hotline, with construction counselors standing by on weekends and national holidays. (When ELSE would you build a greenhouse?)
• The sales brochure, featuring a rapturous gardener smiling at a tomato plant, with the headline: “Imagine Tomatoes in February.” And, underneath, the subhead: “Then imagine your electric bill tripling and imagine your second job to pay it.”
• Caulking, bungie cords and tent stakes, duct tape, bubble wrap, sheets of Styrofoam, plastic trays and pots, huge bags of potting soil, garden tools, seeds, watering cans, gravel or cement pavers and a college student who will help you—cheap.
• Instructions to install the water line and timers —parts included, please—so you can leave for that 2-week vacation and have the greenhouse take care of itself …

Winter One, Scene Two:

In April, it finally stops raining, and my husband installs the doors. Within ten days, daytime temps in the greenhouse (even with the vents and screens open) soar to 90 degrees. We were hoping to grow plants, not to cook them! Alas, this first year, we have missed greenhouse season completely.

AACT TWO, Winter Two

Scene One:

Bright LED grow lights hang weightlessly above over-wintering snapdragons, while pots of bok choy, radishes, and lettuce nestle into the gravel floor of the greenhouse. A cozy gardener on a plastic lounge chair, wrapped in a blanket, sleeps next to them, where the sun has warmed the inside of the greenhouse to 68 degrees, on this sunny October day. Ah, peace.

Winter Two, Scene Two:

One frosty December morning, we awaken to see the greenhouse roof sagging under a thick load of snow. (Aluminum supports bend rather easily.) I grab a calculator: 9 inches of snow x 180 square feet of roof, at 15-degree pitch equals a 750-pound load. I holler for my husband: “We have to get the snow off the roof! NOW!” Overnight, the bottom layer of snow has turned to solid ice. Three hours later, we finish brushing and chipping away the white tomb encasing the roof.

Our greenhouse maintenance kit now includes two 10-foot ladders and a long car-wash brush with soft bristles. Next time it starts to snow heavily, we will also run two electric heaters on full blast to keep the ice at bay.

It snows several more times during the next month.

Winter Two, Scene Three:

The big electric bill arrives. It’s 50% more juice than last year—and 75% more money! It’s suddenly hard to remember that it’s cheaper to run the heat than to let the roof cave in. It is. It REALLY is.

Winter Two, Scene Four:

Can you say, “heat mats?” All greenhouse gardeners buy these after that first whopper electric bill.

The heat mats provide nice June temps for seedling roots, while their leaves grow in October temps, and it’s as sunny as July under the grow lights. Can plants become confused by these highly unlikely temperatures under normal growing conditions?

Winter Two, Scene Five:

Do plants need to sleep? Do roots need darkness? Yes, and yes. Bulbs in pots need to chill for eight weeks outside (where it’s cold) or they do nothing. And radish seeds planted in a clear plastic tote get confused, and also do nothing. Roots are shy, they like to hide.

Winter Two, Scene Six:

The long, cold Winter is over. After racing out on frigid nights to tenderly wrap the big pots of snapdragons in bubble wrap, only to frantically remove it on warm afternoons, it’s finally March. The buds on my four-foot-tall snapdragons have opened, and the greenhouse looks like a florist’s hothouse, full of red, white, and pink flowers.

Maybe I was a little worked up about that electric bill, after all.

EPILOGUE

A couple more Winters pass, and I notice a few things. I experiment with cool-weather veggies, planting them outside in deep, raised beds, eight weeks before the first frost. They’re surrounded by heavy U-shaped supports and covered with heavy row cover, rated for 20 degrees. The plants survive well and slowly grow, even during record cold. When I uncover them during the early Spring warm-up, they quickly explode into monster lettuce and kale plants. All of this happens outside, not in the greenhouse.

Still, the greenhouse is a great place to snooze (in that plastic lounger) on a sunny Winter day. And, hey, when it gets chilly, I can turn on the heaters. ❖