GREENHOUSE ENVY, THE IGUANA & ME
Let's Hibernate!
This is the season when the shortest day of the year is near. The darkest, longest nights press down upon us. I want to hibernate along with the wild animals: give me a long sleep, a nice coating of blubber and a fleece-lined nest.
Any five year old will tell you that people don't do that!
Linger
Instead, I venture forth and visit the nurseries in my area, not to buy or browse or chat. I go there to linger in their greenhouses. I need to be surrounded by growing plants and the gentle aroma of freshly mixed potting soil. At this time of year, I can even appreciate the lingering scent of insecticidal soap.
Learn
Every time I visit a greenhouse, large or small, I'm on a fishing expedition. I want information. I want to know about the design concepts, construction materials, the heating and ventilation systems, the management practices, the details of their IPM strategy, their record keeping.
I want to see for myself how the crop is coming along, be it a personal collection of orchids in a little lean-to home hobby greenhouse or endless rows of bedding plants under mass production. I examine their irrigation methods and potting benches, their yellow sticky traps, sniff the sprayers and circumspectly check the thermostats and alarm systems and back up mechanicals. I look for algae on the benches, weeds in the cracks. I rejoice at their trays of freshly germinating seedlings, celebrate the nascent roots on skimpy cuttings, wrinkle my nose over any sign of fungal disease. I want to participate!
Luxuriate
I want the sun to bring out my freckles, the humidity to cling to my skin and curl my hair, start the sweat prickling on my neck beneath my winter jacket. I want to dull my fingernails against the perlite and find vermiculite ingrained in my knuckles, peat moss in my eyebrows. I want to have mud on my shoes again!
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