Installing Hydronic Radiant Flooring: Greenhouse Heating Update

flir heat map greenhouse

Having lived with my Hartley greenhouse through two winters in Southern Ontario I’ve gained a little experience with how my electric heaters work in extreme cold. Two 17,000 BTU electric fan heaters set at 15C can keep the greenhouse at 10C inside when the temperature drops to -6C. Once we reach -12C the greenhouse temperature… Read more »

Tapping Our Biggest Maple Trees – Not Sugar Maples

Bucket from tapped Norway maple

I am more than bored with winter and needed a garden-related activity so we decided to try our hand at making maple syrup. We’ve never tapped maples before and our sugar maple is too small. So rather than wait, we’re tapping some other maple trees. Unfortunately, our biggest sugar maple is only 7 inches in… Read more »

First Seed Starts – Greenhouse or Basement?

Seed starts lettuces, chard, spinach, onions

In past years I’ve done all my seed starts from February through May in a small setup in my basement. Now with a new greenhouse, I have room to grow, quite literally. The question is, how early will I want to turn on the heat in the greenhouse? We live in Zone 5 Ontario and… Read more »

Heating the Greenhouse. My First Experiments.

Greenhouse heater

One of the decisions I had to make when building our Hartley greenhouse was how it would be heated. Ultimately I decided to go with electric heaters. While not as efficient as gas, I was way more comfortable with the idea of having two electric fan heaters than I was installing gas heaters. The setup… Read more »

What’s It Like To Get A Hartley Botanic Greenhouse?

Hartley installation complete

Let me start off by saying I love my new Hartley Greenhouse. It’s a dream to have something this beautiful and yet, for me, functional. I still have some finishing details – brickwork which could not be completed before winter arrived and landscaping – but the main structure is up and it’s lovely. So how… Read more »

Getting an Early Start to the Vegetable Garden

Living around the Kitchener-Waterloo area in southern Ontario we have a decent gardening season, but most years you can’t reliably plant vegetables outside until late May and most produce is finished by late September. I’ve read a lot about year-round gardening and have, with limited success, been able to extend our harvest with row covers… Read more »

My Daffodils are Backwards!

Front view of same daffodils

Last fall, with the help of my mom and dad who were up for a visit, I planted a couple hundred daffodils along the edge of my back gardens. Some were the traditional single yellow daffodils, others were white, some multi-coloured. Finally this past week the last started to bloom and they look lovely. There’s… Read more »

Weather Confusion – What Happened To Spring?

March 25, 2016 - ice storm in southern ontario

If it wasn’t April 4 I’d think this was someone’s idea of an April fool’s joke. After a very mild winter, with little snow, old man winter dressed up as a Polar Vortex and decided he’d show up just as spring arrived. He’s not just late to the party but he’s the guest no-one wants… Read more »

Practical Crop Rotation – A Second Look

crop rotation vegetable gardening

Gardening evolves with knowledge and experience. I have been formally planning my vegetable garden layout on paper for several years now and each year I think I get a little bit better. In addition to learning about plant families, I have come to realize how you effectively rotate your crops depends upon what exactly you… Read more »

Crop Rotation, Plant Families And The Vegetable Garden

When planning your vegetable garden, consider the benefits of crop rotation. Good crop rotation prevents the build up of pests and diseases in the soil and preserves micro-nutrients. For example, legumes (beans and peas) will actually add nitrogen to the soil. While crop rotation will not guarantee that diseases will not occur, it greatly reduces… Read more »