Phew!

It wasn't easy. But it was worth it. The move of tall plants from gh1 to gh2 (the new high ceiling-ed structure) was quite a logistic challenge. For, it's not everyday that you displace your plants like that and in the bargain completely under-estimate the extent of planning required for an apparently mundane task. Here's the sequence and learning of what not to do, if you ever need to do what I needed to. 

Shankar and I snap all the strings supporting the cherry tomato to the frame of gh1. The plant sags. We begin to panic. We lift off the grow bed, foolishly trying and miserably failing in supporting the now wildly flailing many branches of the plant. We somehow step out of the green-house. Shankar is suddenly reminded he has a family...3 kids, a wife and a father-in-law. He mentions maybe we could use some help from them. I cry, yes. He vanishes...with me, precariously balancing the plant and the grow-bed, partly resting it on ground and also seeing nothing but for a green blur, with tomato smells & and leaves creeping under my collar, into my eyes and ears. The family returns on a run. By this time, some friendly (and inquisitive) creepy crawly has begun it's inspection of the insides of my right nostril. Tripping, sneezing, laughing and uttering urgent gibberish this caterpillar of humanity and plant moves towards gh2. We place the grow-bed on ground...I dislodge the bug from my nose...the family departs laughing. Shankar and I look at each other, not so amused. And definitely decided that that's not how, we'd move the balance two grow beds. Here's what we concluded. One...we'd need to tie a network of string at the ceiling of gh2 beforehand, as a ready and flexibly placed support-grid for the soon to arrive plants. Two...before detaching the plant from its support strings at gh1, the requisite manpower required for the transfer, needed to be in place. I also considered keeping a clothesline clip handy for personal safety, but dropped the idea. 

So, while we got the string support-grid in place at gh2, the cherry tomato rested thus...

Soon our strings were in place and so were our wits. And the cherry tomato stood tall, happily supported and it's leaves abundantly exposed to light and air.

We'd learnt our lesson well and we imbibed what we'd learnt to the T. The balance grow beds soon followed and gh2 now looks like a place that means business. 

Gh1 meanwhile, is back to looking like a beautiful haven for hydroponic hobbyists. 

Apart from the fact that the tall plants now have enough space to grow and breathe, it also gives me an opportunity to prune and shape them better. One gets a much clearer picture of what, how much and where all to snip, for the overall health of the plant. Also, one gets to see the produce that one never knew existed. For instance, I never new that the tomatoes that I'd planted later had already begun to fruit...or that the 7 feet tall chilly was already producing mouth watering lush upright bombs.

The next in line is the filling up of the gh1 with the improvised raft systems I'd earlier spoken of. Unfortunately, I need to travel this entire week. So, that'd need to wait. But I shall keep us all posted. Meanwhile, the cucumbers are consistently bringing a lot of cheer and crunch at home.