I’ve been frustrated by spotty germination in the hoophouse. Some things are growing lushly – escarole, spinach, kale, carrots. But others are just not where I’d want them to be at this time of year.
So I planted more seeds today, including in the vacant spaces left by the tomatillo harvest. Mostly spinach, but also some winter lettuce and ice-bred arugula. We’ll see what happens.
Also added some goat manure and watered. A very light snow – maybe sleet – ticked on the cover of the hoophouse while I was working.
New decorative items, gifts from a friend in Connecticut who is downsizing. A wind chime that looks like peacock feather eyes, made of glass, hanging on the right middle brace. And a decorative hanging pot just visible at the top of the photo.
Basil, purchased seedlingsOkra, from seed. Can see little conical buds forming. The okra patch. Started these Cajun Jewel from seed, then transplanted them here. Peppers! Our once-a-week deep watering regimen has really helped with pepper productivity, I think. Poblanos! Probably my favorite pepper. Seedlings from Chuck. A wee Black Diamond eggplant. They are not as robust as the peppers. Large tomatillo plants, but few fruits that I can see. I hope they catch up because I have a lot of tomatillo recipes I want to try. A mystery tomato (top) and Amy’s basil on the bottom. I’ve been pinching it from the top.
We will soon transition the hoophouse to its summer purpose — hothouse crops like peppers, basil, eggplants. Maybe a tomato, tomatillo, ground cherry.
It’s time to acknowledge that the hoophouse has been great this past winter for overwintering greens.
Planted in late August, it produced robust happy plants in the fall until real cold weather.
Then we ate greens (although sparingly) all winter, with one cleanup to remove dead plants.
Come spring, some varieties really took off. We had abundance much earlier than we would get from outdoor planting.
It’s work, but not a lot of work. We rarely watered the raised beds. We covered them with frost-protection cloth at night and removed it in the morning. We installed dowels in channels sewn at the edge of the cloth strips to make it easier to lift and drape the covers. We’ll have to decide how to enrich the soil in the beds before this coming August (when the hothouse crops will still be in there!).
Hesitating for various reasons: tatsoi, carrots, scallions, minutina
More short-lived, consider succession planting: mache, arugula
Give it a try: cilantro
Last Red Butter Salanova lettuce, surrounded by new leaf spinach “Space.” Planted 30 Aug 2019. Really nice to have a few contrasting color leaves in winter salads. Napoli carrots. Planted 30 Aug 2019. Ate some as babies, will soon harvest the rest. Not sure of the advantage of “fresh” carrots in the winter if we can store carrots from the big garden. I’ve heard you can eat carrot tops, but I can’t bring myself to try.Tatsoi, spring planting. August planting didn’t make it through the winter. This is starting to bolt. Not real happy with tatsoi, although it’s better under cover. It isn’t eaten to death by flea beetles when grown in here. It does grow fast and has good flavor. A huge mound of claytonia. Planted 23 Aug 2019 and still going strong. Apparently self-seeds because it’s everywhere. Fun to pluck the little disc and snack on it. Everyone asked “What is this?” It should be more well known. Great performer if you can deal with the long stems (which are edible but hard to manage with a fork!) and the invasiveness. Tasty and fun to eat the little white flowers too!Scallions. Seed saved from garden. Planted 23 Aug 2019. Grew well although we don’t eat these often. Probably nice to have a row of it — need to thin it better!Kale mix, including the delicious kale buds. Planted 23 Aug 2019. Ate sparingly through the winter, growing big and providing buds now. Chard. Planted 23 Aug 2019. Ate sparingly through the winter and growing to full size now. Leaf Spinach. Space and Red Kitten varieties. Planted 23 Aug 2019. Preference for the Space variety as it’s not bolting yet. But both performed well through the winter. Winter Lettuce. Planted 23 Aug 2019. Fantastic through the winter. Growing into bigger heads now. More new spinach. And some unknown red plant? The last beautiful escarole. Franchi Sementi seeds. Planted 23 Aug 2019 and will probably eat this one tomorrow. Fantastic through the winter and expanded rapidly into these big beautiful heads with longer days. Plant more next season!New Astro arugula. August-planted arugula was great in the fall but didn’t make it through the winter. Some succession plantings maybe? We like it a lot. Minutina. Planted 12 Sept 2019. Not a huge fan. The leaves are very narrow and a bit coarse. This was the only thing eaten by some garden visitor – vole or rabbit? Hard to believe they ate this instead of the other lush greens.Mache, with some claytonia photo-bombing. Planted 19 Sept 2019. Did okay through the winter, but not as extraordinary as claytonia. Good to have both. It’s bolting now, so I’m pulling it out. I planted too much of it.A lone cilantro – where’d you come from? Maybe try a row in the fall and another planting early next year. Bed of savoyed spinach. Winter Bloomsbury and Olympia. Planted 12 and 19 September 2019. Doing well, but not sure they’ll take the heat on sunny days much longer.
Not pictured: Mizuna, which grew okay in the fall but died out in mid-winter and had to be removed. I don’t think I’d grow it again as it took space away from better performers.
Snow was predicted earlier, but the forecast changed. And indeed we are getting rain, rain, and more rain and strong winds. A real snow melter.
Yesterday in the hoophouse
I thought it would be pleasant enough sheltered in the hoophouse but the temperature was somewhere in the 30’s and my hands became numb almost immediately.
Nevertheless I planted some arugula, Salanova lettuce, and tatsoi in some of the empty rows in the hoophouse. Sam watered them in with the hose. Now we are warming up inside.
Sam is interested in the temperature management inside the hoophouse where we are overwintering greens. Four seasons farming!
The hoophouse’s plastic cover does part of the job. Then there is an internal low hoop of heavy duty row cover over the raised beds. He has also hung silver-backed bubble wrap from the internal hoophouse frame to reflect light down onto the plants on sunny days.
To give an indication of the difference it makes on a cold day, I recorded some temperatures on February 9, 2020:
Time
Conditions
ThermometerLocation
Temperature
6:30 am
Sunrise
Outside
1 ℉
In hoophouse
?
Row cover down
At soil level
19 ℉
9 am
Sun
Outside
8 ℉
In hoophouse
37 ℉
Row cover down
At soil level
28 ℉
9:30 am
Sun
Outside
9.3 ℉
In hoophouse
51 ℉
Row cover raised
At soil level
50 ℉
11:00 am
Sun
Outside
12 ℉
In hoophouse
72 ℉
Row cover raised
At soil level
71 ℉
7:30 pm
Dark
Outside
19 ℉
In hoophouse
20 ℉
Row cover down
At soil level
30 ℉
Conclusions:
The hoophouse and the row covers definitely both help. On a 1 degree night, the temperature at soil level was 19 degrees.
A manual effort is required to lift off the row covers when the sun is shining. This shows in the difference at soil level between 9 and 9:30 am. With the row cover down at 9 am, the row cover was keeping in the night’s cold even though the temp in the hoophouse was rising quickly. With the row cover raised shortly after 9 am, the temps in the hoophouse and soil level equalized.
After the sun went down, it was 19 outside, 20 in the hoophouse, and 30 at soil level, showing the row covers really retain some of the day’s heat.
Sam wants to automate the lifting of the row covers (and other aspects of this process when we get a greenhouse). But for now, it’s been an interesting science project and we are still eating a small amount of greens.
We did some work on the raised beds in the hoophouse today. Some were pretty much gone by and had to be cut back severely (arugula, mizuna). Others needed a trim, removal of dead tips and rotting base leaves. We got a bag of fresh greens for our trouble. Then tucked everybody back under their row covers. Supposed to drop into the teens tonight. The chickens got a bundle of clippings.
Hoophouse in a bit of snow and pale afternoon sunlight
From bottom: arugula (2 rows, plucked), escarole (1), winter lettuce (2), spinach (2), chard (1), kale (1)
From bottom; scallions, claytonia, cut-back mizuna, tatsoi, carrots, Salanova lettuce
The temperatures have dipped into the teens for several nights recently but the greens in the hoophouse remain healthy and lush. I opened the row covers this afternoon in the sun to give them some extra light and air. While picking some greens, I found a soft green caterpillar munching away and a few grasshoppers, live and well.
I am enjoying these beds of greens very much. They are lush and trouble-free. No damage from bugs or frost or drought. No need to water as we haven’t closed up the hoophouse yet.
Wonder how they will do as cold weather sets in, if it does.
From top: arugula, escarole, lettuces, spinach, chard, kale
From top: green onions, claytonia, mizuna, tatsoi, carrots, Salanova lettuce. And a sunflower snuck in.
