Greenhouse Gardening in Winter

My Greenhouse in the beginning of February

It's warm inside!

Lettuces, herbs, broccoli, radishes

Green onions, more lettuce & broccoli

Even though we got 3-4 inches of snow today, my plants in the greenhouse are staying warm and growing. I transplanted several root bound lettuces and broccoli today while the kids were sledding outside. I have been supplementing 4-5 hours of light in the late afternoon because we still have very little daytime light right now. Even though some days are very sunny, we still have a majority of gray days. I am hoping that the transplants will be full size plants when I transplant them outside in the spring. I have never had much luck with spring gardening before. In the past I would buy transplants of spinach, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce and other cold crops from a local farm store. By the time they grew big enough to harvest, the amount of light and heat would have caused the lettuce and spinach to bolt and the broccoli and cabbage to flower. I believe it is because spring in Kentucky is very short. We will have days in early spring that reach into the upper 80's and 90's but we also have days of frigid weather, wind and frost that prevent you from planting your warm crops too early. The greenhouse will allow me to grow my spring transplants bigger than what I could buy at the store when it is time to plant the spring garden. Hopefully this plan will give me an early harvest of spring crops. When I get ready to put the spring transplants in the ground I will be ready to start the warm season seeds in the greenhouse. I also planted some seeds of cold tolerant lettuces and spinach in the garden in late fall. These have already started to sprout but are growing very slowly. This spring they should start to take off as the daylight hours and soil temperatures increase.