While most gardeners are thinking about and wishing for spring, one Tooele County couple hasn't let winter stop them from indulging in their gardening passion.
When I visited Ralene Barton and Mike Price, it was snowing hard outside, but it was nice and toasty inside their greenhouse.
Barton, who grew up in Tooele, credits her horticultural interest to her father. Price, who is from Salt Lake City, is a general contractor and says he's "the builder, not the grower. I just pull a lot of weeds. She (Barton) is the driving force."
Yet the two of them have created a year-round garden getaway in their own back yard.
"I always dabbled in starting seeds," Barton said. When she bought her house, that interest "just grew and grew, and I filled the whole front room with them. Mike and I were talking one day, and he said, 'I'm going to make you a greenhouse out of the garage because we never use it as a garage anyway."'
"Like most single-car garages, it was not used as a garage, but ended up full of junk," Price said. "After the second time of cleaning it out I said, 'That's it!'
"I told Ralene that for what it would cost us to put up a (greenhouse) kit, we could convert the garage. When she came home one day, I had already started to tear off the roof and replace it with the fiberglass," Price said.
With his contractor's background, Price made a marvelous conversion. He stripped off the wooden shingles and removed every other 1-by-6-inch board from the building's roof. He then fastened sheets of fiberglass to the existing roof system to create a structurally sound cover that let the light in.
He then cut openings into the cinderblock walls and installed recycled windows. He also cut an opening for an entry door. He then filled in the existing garage-door opening with south-facing windows to collect the light. While building a patio on the back of the home, he ran natural gas, electrical and water lines from the house. A swamp cooler keeps it cool in the summer and a natural-gas heater keeps it warm in the winter.
Price said it has all the comforts of home with "running water and cable TV."
Barton explains theirs is an unconventional design. "The carport on the south blocks some of the sun, and we have west-facing windows that collect extra heat in the summer." However, those drawbacks haven't slowed her down.
"I germinate my seeds inside with heat mats and grow lights. I have shelves in the front of the greenhouse with grow lights, and when they get ready to transplant, I move them there. When they get too big and get too many for the greenhouse, we move them into our cold frames."
Barton grows everything for her own garden. Her greenhouse is filled with cuttings of coleus, irisene, geraniums and many other favorite plants. Other favorite herbs and flowers are kept in pots and make the seasonal journey in and out as the weather dictates.
"I also have my favorite 'mother' houseplants and use those to propagate starts. I grow philodendrons, spider plants, creeping charley and many other flowers and vegetables. I also save my own seeds, so these jars are filled with sweet williams, zinnias, morning glory, nicotiana, Belles-of-Ireland, petunias, African daisies and cosmos," Barton said.
"I like to go through the seed catalogs and try to find unusual seeds that I have not grown before. I try to find different kinds of plants."
She admits a garden fills a critical need in her life. "I need some garden therapy! Christmas has taken time away from my greenhouse, and I am missing it. I am usually out here every night or at least every other night, and I haven't been able to do that. I always like to keep my hands dirty, and it is truly my therapy."
A little midwinter gardening therapy might be just what the garden doctor ordered. A personal greenhouse might be just the answer for your midwinter blues.
Larry Sagers is the horticulture specialist, Utah State University Extension, Thanksgiving Point.