9 Jan 2009

GROWING GREENS YEAR ROUND!

Posted by rawutah

We’ve been applying some information we read in a book called, “Four Season Harvest“ by Eliot Coleman. It’s full of interesting tips on how to successfully grow in any climate, in any season. He lives in Maine on the 44th parallel. He explains that his most recent book is based on the year round agricultural practices of French farmers, also living on the 44th parallel. He has studied their practices and mixed it with his own work! The result is this insightful book on growing food year round! He says that if he can eat great salad in Maine year round, then anywhere to the south of Maine can also!

He shares tips like what crops grow naturally in cold temperatures, crops like: mache, arugula, claytonia, and minutina. All which grow very well and naturally in winter. He explains that even with greenhouse or tunnel covered crops, it’s more natural to work with nature and plant cold hardy crops that enjoy the cold and even increase in flavor as the temperature drops!

Looking down at the tunnel

Venting the tunnel

We’re re-creating something similar to what happens in nature when we put a cover, like plastic, glass or polycarbonate over our garden.

For example: French peasants, at one time, foraged for greens all winter long, by going out into the forest and looking under brush and logs, because they realized cold hardy greens, would often be growing under fresh fallen snow!

The greens continued to photosynthesize under the blanket of snow!

This is now re-created through modern innovations like greenhouses, cold frames and low or high covered plastic tunnels.

Another great insight I enjoyed from the book was, in a greenhouse, he says, instead of heating it, just cover your veggie beds with a plastic sheet or floating row cover cloth, supported by arched wire frames. This creates a secondary temperature barrier against the cold. This “twice tempered climate” becomes what he calls a “protected microclimate.”

It makes year round growing affordable in greenhouses, especially if you’re not trying to grow tropicals. Just stick to the leafy greens that love the cold!

The picture above is, Collard, Kale and Chard. All grown under a plastic tunnel, in highly mineralized soil, supplemented with local rock dusts, such as volcanic cinders and Azomite, written about in “Secrets of the Soil.” The Azomite deposit is found here, in Utah. We also used ocean water – from growgreens.com !!

The condensation created inside the tunnel evaporates up hits the plastic, dripping back down as moisture for the plants, the additional mulch around the plants retains most of this moisture! I haven’t needed to water most of the winter!

As I mentioned earlier, you can use plant cover cloth, like Agribon, which adds an additional layer of protection. Also, the plants can breathe through it, keep warm, keep protected from insects and wind, and the plants actually push the Agribon up as they grow!

Viola – Pansy (edible) – for the salad….and to attract beneficial insects. They’re beautiful too!

If you don’t have a greenhouse, or a plastic tunnel, he shares that a different method the French have historically used is: cold frames.

There is a whole chapter in the book dedicated to these old methods of growing food in winter. Which can be manually vented by the grower everyday, or, you can install an automatic window vent. The venting is created as the bees wax filled cylinder heats up, then through pressure, it forces the tube open. Brilliant!

This is also how the dome greenhouse vents itself! The history behind these vents is worth checking out as well!

Since the advent of plastic, French farmers have been using a method which creates “low tunnels” of plastic, supported by PVC pipe or wire, under which plants thrive! “Four Season Harvest” by Elliot Coleman, has definitely helped us extend our grow operation, by helping us with alternative methods of growing greens through winter!

Here’s to the GREEN SMOOTHIES!

We hope to have 4 tunnels by next winter! Supplying our GREEN SMOOTHIE habit!! The dome is only so big inside, and we want to stop buying greens from the grocery store!

This book was amazing!

We fully recommend it to anyone wanting to grow through the winter and just grow period! It’s full of techniques for composting, root cellars, regular-season growing and on and on!!!

Check it out!