Why You Need a Greenhouse, and Possibly an Easy-Bake Oven

WHY YOU NEED A GREENHOUSE, AND POSSIBLY AN EASY-BAKE OVEN

BY ROBIN FORD WALLACE AND HER INNER CHILD

            Do you need a greenhouse?

            With heat costs at record highs, food prices soaring and Christmas bills to pay, should you shell out the bucks to build and maintain a structure from which you will probably never realize any financial gain whatsoever?

            Well, probably.

            No!  Don’t listen!  That wasn’t me talking.  That was my inner child.  She’s been on the rampage lately.  Today she grabbed a chilidog sample at the grocery store and stuffed it into my mouth before I could pry it out of her grubby little fingers.  I would have explained it was going to be cold and nasty as well as choked with fat grams, but I couldn’t, my mouth was full of chilidog. 

She doesn’t understand things like nutrition.  That’s why she’s so fat.

            All right.  Now that the little dumpling is off pouting, let’s talk about greenhouses as fast as we can before she finishes her fudgesicle and comes butting back in.

            I won’t tell you how to build a greenhouse.  You can find plans in almost any gardening magazine.  You can order kits or get smaller ones delivered whole.  You can spend anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to your credit card limit.

            Whatever you spend initially, though, over the years you’ll spend a lot more.  First, you need to heat your greenhouse.  Going in, many of us don’t grasp that.  We understand that light and heat are trapped by our greenhouse and we think that will suffice.  Then we peek in one January night when it’s 18 degrees outside and notice that inside our scientifically designed greenhouse it’s a toasty 21.

            Some optimists suggest warming your greenhouse with plastic garbage cans filled with water.  During the day, the water absorbs heat, and during the night, it radiates it.  I didn’t major in science but even I can figure out that if I used enough garbage cans in my tiny greenhouse to make any difference in the temperature, I wouldn’t have enough room for plants, or possibly even my butt.

            So you will need some kind of heater for your greenhouse, one with a thermostat.  The idea is to set it as low as possible so that it flips on automatically and runs just long enough to keep things from freezing.  You can get something like that for around $40 at any home store, but of course the electricity costs money, too.

            Whoops.  I forgot to tell you that you’d better get your greenhouse wired for electricity.  Heat-wise, you could always use LP, but you’ll need lights out there so you can continue playing after dark, and eventually you’ll begin making the case for a refrigerator.

            You’ll also need ventilation.  In the South, you’ll usually only need the heater at night.  Except in the frostiest weather, though, the greenhouse is so good at trapping sunlight that it gets way too hot during the day.  So you must trot out and open windows and doors, and an exhaust fan doesn’t hurt, either.

            Now.  Did I mention plumbing?  You’d better have a hose in your greenhouse or you’ll be schlepping buckets out there like Molly Pitcher, twice a day when it’s sunny.  And if you want to take a week’s vacation, you’d better hire somebody to greenhouse-sit, because otherwise you’re going to come home to find toast where your plants used to be.

            In conclusion, having a greenhouse entails not only expense but also considerable trouble.  That being said, why have one?

            Because of that odious inner child, that’s why.  She always wanted a playhouse and her parents were too poor to get her one, and the stupid girl has been sulking about it for decades.  She’s still mad about the Suzy Homemaker Easy-Bake Oven, too.

            Not that I believe in coddling the inner child.  She is nothing but trouble.  She grabs at cookies when I’m on a diet and whines about playing outside when I’m at work.  In tense situations, when I’m trying to be aloof and professional, she’ll get her pink feelings hurt and start either to cry or cuss.  You wouldn’t believe some of the words she knows. 

In fact, she’s gotten me into so much trouble that if I could get our hands on her, I’d beat her until DFAICS (Department of Family and Inner Children’s Services) came to take her away, and then I’d wave a beer can at them and tell them they could keep the little slut.

But I’m stuck with her, and I find the greenhouse keeps her from poisoning our system with moon pies or quitting our job in the winter, when she’s bored and subject to tantrums.  She thinks it’s cool because it’s just like a real house, only little, and she plays happily in the mud out there for hours.  The electric bill is a small price to pay.

Though I draw the line at the Easy-Bake Oven.

END

     Robin Ford Wallace lives in Deerhead Cove, where her inner child plays quietly in the dirt, smeared with chocolate around the mouth.