Tuesday 16 July 2013

Painting Shade

I picked up a brush for the first time this year today but before you all get excited* and head down to your local swish art gallery hoping to pick up a bargain I have to point out it wasn't canvas I was painting but glass.

It's not something that we've needed to worry about much in the last few years; I don't think we've had a decently bright summer since the greenhouse went up but after the last ten or twelve days of strong sunshine which is now predicted to continue for at least another ten days something had to be done. Just keeping up with the watering was hard work but the plants were getting stressed in the very high heat even with all the ventilation I could manage for them and that was leading to failure to set, dropped fruit and sunburn on the tender leaves of the curcubits.

You can buy a very good product the name of which completely escapes me but you mix it with water, apply it with a whitewash brush to the outside of the glass and once it's dried it resists quite heavy rain. At the end of the season you can remove it when it's dry by rubbing it off with a soft dry cloth. Not cheap but the industry standard.

Of course I didn't have any of that, couldn't even find a whitewash brush. No, I used some very dilute white acrylic paint and put it on the inside of the glass with a large round oil paint brush about 1cm in diameter. No, you shut up. I'm hoping it'll come off in time and if not, well the greenhouse isn't used much in the winter anyway.

It really works, I think the temperature in the greenhouse dropped by 10 degrees just as I was applying the paint, going from 'can't stand another two minutes of this' to 'I'm o.k.' as soon as the coating was finished. Of course, you'll have me to blame now the heat wave is over.

whitewashed green

* if you're that keen I take commissions. A flat price but you take what you're given. Start your collection now.

1 comment:

Rhizowen said...

I've just done the same. I don't know about the plants, but the greenhouse is now just about habitable for 5 minutes - long enough to leap in, water like mad and get out.