Greenhouse #1 Update

The cucumber/zucchini greenhouse is spent. This one is Greenhouse #1. Time to tear out the old plants, rejuvenate the soil, and plant again. I sowed the seeds for those plants on June 6th in the mini-greenhouses. They grew there as seedlings until they were transplanted to the large greenhouse on July 1st. On July 16th I harvested my first baby zucchini. The first cucumber was picked on July 29th. By August 25th the plants were starting to fail, so I removed the poor looking ones, keeping the healthiest of the group. Last week I finally called it quits. The plants looked terrible. They were over mature, brittle, had lost most of their leaves, and were no longer flowering. I kept them in the greenhouse just long enough to harvest the last of their fruits. 

Tired old plants ready to be pulled out. 

There were a total of 9 cucumber plants and 7 zucchini. From these I harvested 102 cucumbers and 41 zucchini. I find this to totally amazing because prior to this experiment I had produced only a few cucumbers and zero zucchini. All previous attempts had succumbed to pests and disease. 

Cleaning up the greenhouse, I pulled the plants, pulled or cut off all weeds, and found two humongous overly mature cucumbers hiding down along the bottom of the greenhouse covering. So they brought the cuke total to 104, although these two giants went to feed the chickens instead of us.

12" slicer cuke, and 6" pickler. 

I'm right now in the process of adding soil amendments, which I will lightly till in before replanting. A five gallon bucket of fresh sheep manure per garden bed (each bed is 50 square feet). A 3 inch deep layer of homemade compost. A good sprinkling of dolomite lime, because my soil is deficient in available calcium. 

Cleaned up and ready for soil amendments. Crusty, the black farm dog, is helping. 

The soil in this greenhouse is in the process of being improved and built up. The cukes and squash were the first crops from this soil. So I was impressed with the yield. Of the cukes, the Saber variety was by far the most productive. The other varieties suffered from the soil not being up to par. Of the zucchini, Desert far out did Golden Glory and Black Beauty. Again, I suspect the soil fertility is to blame.  I plan to retry all the various cucumber varieties again, and I'll grow Desert and Golden Glory again. But in place of Black Beauty, I plan to try Partenon zucchini instead.