Yesterday I did a fair amount of organizing in our garage. The primary goal was to fit my wife's car in it but I also had an ulterior motive: organizing the garage would make it more usable for all the future projects I have planned. We have a bunch of boxes that are now stacked up as high as the riding lawnmower and nearly as long left over from Christmas. Those need to go! A couple may make a good bedding layer for a planting bed but most of them are unsuitable since they have glossy surfaces. We'll take those to the recycling bin at the dump.
During the clean-up and organization process I put together the mini-greenhouse I was given for Christmas. It went together very quickly with no tools (or frustration) needed! I just popped the bars together and voila there was a sturdy little shelf. I continued piecing together the frame then put the plastic sheath over the frame and it was finished. The house has four shelves that will hold several flats on each of the shelves very easily. It stands about 5 feet tall and has a slight peak at the top to provide for taller plants. It even has wheels to help move it around, although the package warns not to move the greenhouse with plants on the shelves. Oops, I already ignored that suggestion! It may have taken 20 minutes to put it together from start to finish. Inside the greenhouse I also rigged up a small light with some twine. That's not very secure but it's the best I had at hand and as long as no one plays around with it or we don't have a big earthquake we should be fine! (Believe it or not I did feel an earthquake in TN once. It was centered in Alabama but we felt it when we lived in Knoxville.)
Before I had the greenhouse my cuttings were on plastic shelves near a window. Now I can use the shelves for other things! Pots, pots and more pots! Did I mention pots? I put the shelves in another corner of the garage where all the pots hung out and moved the pots to their new home. Moving the pots to these shelves cleared up a lot of clutter! I don't think I threw out any nursery pots this year. They are good to re-use for temporary homes for plants and cuttings.
I still need to move my lemon trees to the back of the garage and several boxes to make a little more space for the car to fit but progress was made! It's funny how one of the most useful rooms of the house gets completely bogged down with stuff to the point that it becomes the most useless room! I really wish we had a shed to store the mower and garden tools because of the space they occupy. We'll do that eventually! Perhaps someday the garage will indeed be used for its intended purpose!
Labels: greenhouse, Projects
