Green Wonderland | Vegetable and Strawberry Growing Week 4

Week 4 of me growing vegetables and strawberries in my green house! I planted new plants and looked for ways how to get ants not to enter anymore.

Day 22 | 23.04.2021

Today I weeded the greenhouse completely - except for where my arms were too short to reach. In order to do that I used a small hoe to loosen up the soil. That way it was really easy to get out the weed with the roots.

Then I watered the greenhouse really well as it was quite dry because the weather was very warm. I watered even the parts where no plants are because they were super dry and I am planning on planting more plants, soon. While doing that, I found out where the ants got in: at the glass near the spring onions. I am going to put chilli powder or lemon peel there because I read they avoid it.

And last but not least I saw that two of the bell pepper plants got one bud in the middle.

Day 23 | 24.04.2021

I didn't need to do much today, but I watered very well.

Day 24 | 25.04.2021

Today, too, I needed to water a lot as it was quite hot. I noticed that 2 of the ground-level strawberries are going to blossom soon! So happy♡

Day 25 | 26.04.2021

Everything is growing fine, but the ants are still there and they are said to be bad for plants. How I mentioned before, I do not want to kill them. I read that if you make a barrier with chili powder, lemon peel or lavender blossoms, ants will refrain from passing them. So, I tried putting chili flakes and fresh lemon peel where they enter. At first the ants seemed surprised, fleeing into all directions. However, soon they realized nothing bad is gonna happen and happily walked over the lemon peel and even tried to carry away the chili flakes. Big fail haha. I hope to find a solution soon, though.

Day 26 | 27.04.2021

I finally got some new tomato plants plus two cucumber plants! I hope this time the tomato plants will survive, so hopefully the weather is going to be stable from now on.

I noticed that the two of the ground-level strawberries have blossoms fully open now!

And the chills´ buds started to open a litte and will blossom soon.

But unfortunately the spring onions have some big brown bits and I’m not sure why. Maybe the sun is too strong?

Also, I am not sure but I think the ants became less. Today instead of chili flakes, which obviously did not work, I tried cayenne pepper because I didn’t have normal chili powder in the house. I put it everywhere the ants enter from the outside and on the inside. I also made a row in front of the radish plants as they pass by there a lot. The best solution seems to be placing wood wool into a pot because the ants apparently will start to live in there and then I can just carry them to another, far away place in the garden. I looked for it at the hardware store but they did not have it. I guess I’ll have to order it on Amazone if nothing else works.

Besides that I watered a lot.

Day 27 | 28.04.2021

Sadly, yesterday’s measures against the ants completely failed. I finally ordered some wood wool which is gonna arrive on Friday this week and I pray that it is going to work. One last thing I tried today though was putting a bit of sugar just far enough away from the greenhouse and hope they will find and eat it instead of my plants.

I noticed that especially the strawberries became pretty big over night! One of the hanging strawberries is literally hanging now because the number of strawberries increased and they also became heavier.

And almost all ground-level strawberry plants have at least one blossom each blossoming wonderfully! Look how pretty they are!

The spring onions, too, kinda shot into high over night. And one of the bell pepper plants suddenly has three buds instead of just one. Crazy!

After inspecting everything, I started to work! First, I removed all newly sprouted weed, for which I loosened up the soil first. Afterwards I planted some new plants which I got yesterday. One of it is an orange tomato plant, one is a cherry tomato plant and one a cocktail tomato plant. And I got two different kinds of cucumber: short ones and long ones. I really hope the weather is stable from now on so that they’ll all survive. Oh, and because I had some radish seed tape still I planted it as well because my previously planted radishes are visible already and I want to have new ones ready when I finished eating them. For that I first drew not too deep rills into the soil, placed one tape in each, buried it with soil and watered carefully.

Later I watered the whole greenhouse very thoroughly. By the way, I don't know if you have noticed but the old hanging strawberry plant form last year increased its number of pink blossoms!

Day 28 | 29.04.2021

As it was a cloudy day and therefore the soil still wet I did not need to water. But I was a little bit shocked when I saw that the ants crawling on the strawberry plants even though they used to not be near them. But especially in the evening there were some ants eating the sugar I placed yesterday. Maybe they will prefer it to my plants.