Vegetables On The Move
Written by Danny Wegman on November 4th, 2010.
Filed under: Farm Fresh
In my blog entry this summer, I mentioned our collaboration with Eliot Coleman—one of the nation’s authorities on organic farming. Eliot inspired us to try something new this year on our Organic Farm—movable “hoop houses.”
What are movable hoop houses?
They’re plastic-covered greenhouses on a track system so we can protect crops from frost as the weather gets colder in Upstate NY. Because they’re movable, once our first winter harvest is finished, we can then roll the house to cover the next plot of land—which will already be prepped with nutrient-rich compost and planted with a new set of crops. The goal is to help us extend the growing season by weeks or even months by using this system!
The new hoop houses are now installed on our farm, thanks to the folks at Four Season Tools who came to visit last month and helped our farm team build them.
Here’s a quick video of photos from the construction of these “houses” on our farm so you can see what they look like.
What’s planted under our hoop houses?
Eliot recommended some heartier winter crops for us to try this season. So we’ve planted rainbow chard, carrots, and arugula (we’ve also planted spinach in another hoop house on our farm).
We hope to be able to harvest these crops come early December. It’s sort of become our Christmas wish list.
Check out my latest post to see if our wish came true!
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