Besides all my experiments, the herbs I generally keep on the kitchen porch will be transplanted into the center beds in the greenhouse: lemon balm, thyme, cumin, oregano, cilantro, parsley, sage, basil, chives. And one plant that I don’t know what it is—I’ve had it for a long time, it’s pretty and green, but I always forget to look it up!

Maybe you can give me a clue:

The final bed, besides holding all those freakin’ onions, has spinach—for some reason that didn’t do well in the garden this year, although the kale is still going strong—and I’ll be adding some other vegetables that we normally eat throughout the winter:

Tomatoes

Peppers

Zucchini

Yellow squash

The tale of the zucchini is a sad one…two years ago, I had tons of zucchini. We ate it fresh, I froze a few gallons, and it lasted us almost until the following year’s harvest.

And then the squash bugs came. I had some beautiful squash, and it all died. Every last one. I tried laying down a board—as per the Almanac—and that did nothing except leave a depression on the ground and attract a few ants. I was tempted to burn the whole mess.

This year, they came back; I did get one zuke and one yellow squash before, one by one, the plants died. And let me tell you, I was out there twice a day, using neem powder, scraping eggs off leaves, killing the nymphs, and drowning the adults. Nothing helped.

So into the greenhouse we go, and I’ll keep you posted on how this works out!

I’m considering green beans for inside planting too, which sounds crazy to me but my back was killing me bending over to pick them—maybe it’s time to elevate those too.

The last thing I’m thinking about is popcorn. My dad and stepmom grew it on their farm, decades ago, and this year I was finally able to grow sweet corn. It got to 6 feet tall, tasseled, grew ears, got silks, and I kept the beetles and their eggs away, thanks to neem powder and mineral oil. But I got so carried away admiring all this—for several years, my stalks reached a bare two feet; horse manure, however, works wonders—that I waited too long to pick the ears. They were edible, but just barely.

But I did put some in a cloth bag and hung them in the lean-to to dry for next year’s seed, so it wasn’t all lost.

But popcorn—man, I love popcorn, I eat some almost every day for a snack, or sometimes for lunch. My concern is cross-pollination with the sweet corn, so I think I’ll give it a shot in the greenhouse. I’ve got the height, if I plant in the right spot. We shall see…

Let’s talk about the watering system for a minute. I ordered a misting system, which is a pain in the butt although it works well. I figured I’d string it along the walls, slightly below the lights, and then zig up the middle bed and zag back to the other side.

And it works, for the most part. I don’t mind a little spray now, but I sure will when winter hits! So I’m waiting on a few more parts—and some more line, just in case I mess up at some point—to make a few adjustments.

Now, we first hooked it up to the hose, because the rain barrel had yet to fill. I wanted to make sure I hadn’t ordered a dud and make all the sprayer adjustments. Then we hooked it up to the rain barrel.

All I got were dribbles.

So I did some reading. The first thing that jumped out at me was that a rain barrel, for a gravity feed, needed to be placed 23.1 feet above the garden bed. Um, excuse me, that’s not a rain barrel, that’s a water tower! When I got done laughing at the thought of asking my husband to build a water tower, I read about pumps. Yep, that’s the way to go. It makes some noise but, as a bonus, that noise chases the cats out the door, so there’s that!