Mother Wind does me a favor

One of the joys of having a greenhouse during winter is stepping inside to be enveloped by sun and warmth as I check on whatever is growing. I planted lettuce in two containers to grow this winter and dug up my flat leaf Italian parsley to repot and continue harvesting. My watering visits to the greenhouse were a highlight of a sunny afternoon.

Were. No longer. Yes, you read right. New Year’s Day brought 40 mile per hour winds that knocked down the green house and blew at the plastic, tearing holes in it. As you can imagine, my lettuce containers also toppled from the shelves, spreading black soil and baby plants all over the fallen greenhouse.

When I returned from church and saw the disaster, I quickly changed clothes and made my way out there to see what I could salvage. The wind continued to whip the fallen plastic around me as I scooped up soil and plants to carry inside. Somehow the parsley plant remained intact so I had to merely carry it indoors.

As for the lettuce, my goddaughter and I spent some of the afternoon carefully repotting it from the one oblong and one round container to three round containers that would fit on the counter under my grow light. Yes, you heard me right. I received a grow light from Santa this year. Since I had been planning to bring in one container of lettuce to grow in the heat and light of the kitchen, Mother Wind did me a little favor by pushing me to repot. The long, oblong container that I had photographed in the greenhouse earlier in the week wouldn’t fit under the two-foot light anyway.

I no longer have a test pot in the greenhouse to see how long it could stand up to the sheltered cold. However, I do have lettuce plants that have decided they want to continue growing. They aren’t quite as beautiful as they were all snug in the greenhouse, but they’re getting there. Perhaps in another month we’ll have fresh salad. In the meantime, I need to look into replacing or repairing the greenhouse cover so it will be ready for my spring seedlings.