Overcoming Greenhouse Challenges: Lessons From a Plant Invasion

When my husband and I first set out to build a greenhouse on our little farm, we had visions of lush, thriving plants, baskets of produce, and maybe even a quiet place to sip tea while admiring all that green abundance. Well….we got the thriving plants part right…. just not exactly in the way we imagined.

I was in charge of the planning, lists, and precise instructions (naturally). My husband? The builder, hammer in hand, worked under my careful guidance and watchful eye. Think of it as a team project: one person supplying the vision, the other person wielding the power tools while trying not to lose his cool working with a 25 foot long piece of plastic in a windstorm.

The first year, we had a problem we hadn’t anticipated: rodents. Chipmunks and rats tunneled their way in, treating my lovingly tended veggies like their own private buffet. My garden was destroyed. That mistake was on us as we hadn’t lined the greenhouse base with hardware cloth. Lesson learned. By year two, we added hardware cloth underneath the greenhouse. A wire mesh fortress, if you will, and the buffet closed. Well, mostly. One determined rat managed to sniff out the only access point where our irrigation lines went in. Hats off to his persistence, though I can’t say I appreciated his appetite. (Backfilling that area with more stone to keep him out is next on my to-do list.)

Just when we thought we had solved our greenhouse troubles, we discovered a new one: our plants were too successful. Too strong. Too ambitious. Imagine our surprise when tomato vines and watermelon stems didn’t just grow up, they grew through the greenhouse plastic roof. Yes, ripped straight through. I de-stemmed a couple melons I saw growing up between our cattle panels and the plastic wrap, but I failed to look up. My poor husband nearly fainted when he saw what his weeks of careful construction had become: the inmates had launched a leafy coup, storming through anything in their path, turning my carefully curated garden into a chaotic jungle gym of destruction. His greenhouse was now nothing more than a cage.

I had to laugh (inside, of course). After battling rats, chipmunks, and sneaky irrigation-line intruders, we’d finally done it — we created a greenhouse so effective that the plants staged their own breakout. Honestly? It feels like a win. The watermelons look fantastic, and I’m convinced nothing says success like a greenhouse that literally can’t contain the abundance within it.

And don’t worry – next year I’ll try and take more care with the trellising. And maybe not plant so much. After my husband re-wraps our greenhouse, of course.

_{Atleast those tomatoes are gonna taste great in my Falafel Bowl!}