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Four - season Fannie Merritt Farmer Eliot Coleman impress again with divine guidance for all you cold - love James Leonard Farmer out there ! A maestro ofextending the growing season , Eliot excuse his strategy for a successful winter harvest time and greenhouse purpose .
The following excerpt is fromThe New Organic Grower , 3rd EditionbyEliot Coleman . It has been adapted for the entanglement .
The Winter Harvest
Part of my enthrallment with nursery and greenhouse systems arises from a desire to cater intellectual nourishment to my customers for as much of the year as potential . I think I benefit their health by growing vegetables of an exceptional quality .
I know I help back up a vivacious local economic system by keeping the money circulate within my community . As a local grower I have an authoritative reward over the large wholesale shipper : I provide fresh vegetables . So I do n’t like if the trucked - in crops can claim they were grown with pure stardust by elves and faerie .
Any vegetable blame in majority and ship through the wholesale arrangement are not sassy . Mine were picked today and are on the customer ’s table tonight or tomorrow . I can contend on that fact alone .
Arugula
How the Winter Harvest Succeeds
If I ’m going to stress that freshness angle as part and piece of land of my farm , I want to make it happen for as much of the twelvemonth as potential so as not to let down my customers — whether computer storage , eatery , cobalt - ops , or neighbors — or lose them to another supplier . But I want to do this without excessive spending of Department of Energy .
The winter harvest succeeds by combining the applied science of climate alteration with the biological science of the veggie Earth .
The engineering consist of two layers of protection to temper the harsh blasts of winter ; the plant grow under a stratum of spun bonded framework inside an unwarmed glasshouse . The biology involves the selection of cold - hardy vegetable varieties .
These traditional wintertime crops do n’t mind the short days , nor are they harmed by freezing or by remaining frozen for periods of time .
Extending the Harvest Season
Our goal has always been to extend the novel vegetable harvest season throughout the wintertime months by using low - input signal solution powered by on - farm resource .
The criteria for achieve that finish focus on environmentally sound practices that minimise use of energy and resources .
The list of criteria is post on the wall of the glasshouse to keep us paying attention to how we might do it even better :
Arugula
mood - adapted . Exploiting the electric potential of simple , protected microclimates for the production of hardy crop during the cold month .
Sunlight - drive . Minimal technology pipe - physical body glasshouse covered with a exclusive layer of exterior plastic and adding single - level inside covers . No supplementary heating plant , no perimeter insulation .
Nature - directed . make for with rather than against the realities of cold conditions . Successfully grow cold - hardy crop in the cold months through understanding the influence of day length and territory temperature on clip from planting to harvest . Benefiting from the adaptation of legion cultivars to wintertime light and winter temperatures .
Farm - generated . Using homemade compost , cover crop , and sod - based crop revolution as the principal input to nurture a prolific soil .
Pest bar . emphasize balanced stain as part of a plant - positive management arrangement . Including mobile glasshouse to avoid pest buildup in covered environments .
Weed prevention . Focusing on shallow tillage , timely cultivation , solarisation , and flame weed to prevent weeds from rise or going to seed .
Practical tools . look for out the elementary , most efficacious tools ( and often make or modifying them ourselves ) for each chore from land formulation through harvest .
Nutritionally sound . Providing all the nutritional benefit of really brisk solid food by focalize on local yield for local markets .
Resource efficiency . Saving energy since winter harvest topically mature in unheated structures require only 5 percentage of the energy used for long - length transport .
Eco - rationality . accentuate botheconomic andecological precept . earn a estimable living for farmers and having a positivist influence on the health of our customers and the local environs .
to achieve a decent income during the coldest months of winter we expend some energy by add together minimum heat to one greenhouse . We keep it just above freeze by burn wood and propane .
That give us a neat variety of crops , beyond those that are successful in the unwarmed planetary house , to pull client to our winter Farmer markets . The increased business organization offset the price of heating by about four to one .
Dealing With Weeds
My weed solvent in the winter greenhouse is to dispatch them immature and never let any go to come . I ca n’t emphasize this pointedness enough : Get on top of gage at the starting , and adhere to it .
The way to achieve that end is very square . Most weed seeds burgeon forth in the top 2 column inch ( 5 centimeters ) of the soil . Get free of those seed , and the job is solved .
As long as I till shallowly and do n’t continually fetch up new seeds from low layers , the weed seed reservoir in the top 2 in of soil is exhausted after three to five age , and the foundation for clear polish has been lay .
So for sess - control purpose I think of the wintertime greenhouse as the “ Five Centimeter Farm ” and use two - weed prevention / weed - curtailment techniques .
First , I do all the surface soil preparation with the electrically powered Tilther , which is design to only till shallowly and allow inscrutable grass seeds remain buried .
Second , we solarize the greenhouse territory for a calendar month in summertime every three long time , as necessary , to kill any dope seeds in the top 5 centimeter by arrive at a soil temperature of 145 ° F ( 63 ° C ) at the 2 - inch deepness .
Handling Pests
I have experience very few insect and disease problems in the winter garden .
ab initio I feel the greenhouse might be inaugurate an unreal constituent that could make flora more susceptible . I am convinced now that any impression is minimal as long as well - finish compost and crop gyration are used .
The only disease I have seen was a small grey mold fungus ( Botrytisspp . ) , which did n’t storm me , since it flourish in cool , moist shape . I now prevent it by venting off moist line in the morning .
bar is a time - honored glasshouse practice . In Dutch constituent greenhouses I have seen specially designed vacuum cleaner used before plant a new craw to dispatch any leave-taking or other partially decay organic residues from the stain surface so they can not serve as substrates for disease being .
I do n’t use a emptiness , but I do spend time cleaning up crop residues and prevent halt trimmed close . I attempt to manage the greenhouse surround so as to boost only the plants .
Crop Quality During the Winter Harvest
The timber of wintertime garden crops is continually high , both visually and in terms of feeling , tenderness , and just plain eating pleasure . We do everything we can to ensure optimal soil atmospheric condition , and it obviously pays off .
An inner layer of floating row cover .
The major timbre job sometimes check in wintertime hothouse crops — high nitrate depicted object — is not a problem in this organization .
That ’s because none of the causative factor are present : consumption of soluble atomic number 7 fertilizers , forcing crop in depleted - abstemious atmospheric condition at high temperatures , lack of touch factor , and the use of susceptible kind .
We fertilize only with well - humified , one - and - a - half- to two - year - old compost;we do n’t force the crops ; we have plenty of trace elements in the grease , and we are not produce special wintertime - forcing varieties .
The Mobile Greenhouse
Plus there are overconfident factors run , thanks to the wandering glasshouse .
There is no uninterrupted buildup of nitrate or other salts in the stain as there would be in a permanent greenhouse , becausethis soil is uncovered for one year out of every two .
In addition , the craw that we are harvesting during the low wintertime light ( mid - November to mid- February ) were all sown outdoors in the fall .
They stopped their outgrowth of course as a outcome of refuse temperatures and day distance . The greenhouse cover then arrived to protect them ( the same as if we had actuate them to a milder mood ) . We have extend the crop season for crop inseminate during the growing season .
Low Winter Sun and Greenhouse Layout
The other realness of short winter twenty-four hour period islow sun angle . Be sure your greenhouse internet site wo n’t be shadow by trees , hedge , houses , a mountain , or other greenhouse .
The amount of change in angle from summertime Dominicus to winter sun always surprises me . At our parallel ( 44 degree northerly ) the noontide sun has an altitude angle of 69 degree on June 21 , but only 22 degrees on December 21 .
I have to constantly remind myself to pay tending to where the wintertime shadows will fall when I am put down out greenhouses .
Planning Your Greenhouse for the Winter Harvest
I design my nursery with the long axis run east - west to maximize wintertime sun . To the south of 40 degree north latitude , a due north - Dixieland predilection is advocate .
You need to be aware that true south for greenhouse layout is not the same as magnetized south at most locations . You will need to limit your charismatic declination from a topographic mapping and adapt consequently .
Managing Shade & Sun
When the sun is broken in the wintertime sky , a 10 - foot- ( 3 metre ) improbable greenhouse work east - west will cast a tail 25 feet ( 7.6 meters ) long ; a 12 - foot- ( 3.7 meter ) improbable nursery will cast a 30 - foot ( 9 metre ) tincture .
Thus , a 2d nursery behind the first should be sited at least that far away so as not to be shaded .
In the past I have often used that winter - shade area to grow out-of-door summertime crops(they benefit from the shelterbelt created by the greenhouses ) , or I have cover that solid ground with temporary glasshouse in give and summertime when the sun is gamey in the sky .
Snow: A Reality of the Winter Harvest
There is one last reality of wintertime in improver to cold temperatures and low sunlight : Charles Percy Snow . With heated greenhouses the standard practice is to reverse up the heat during a snowstorm so as to melt down off the snow .
For unheated and low - temperature production , I take a different approach . My greenhouses have a Gothic - wicked roofline and heavier tobacco pipe structure ; both features make for a substantial structure with a shape that sheds snow better .
Although the snowfall slides off the ceiling , it does n’t go away . A heavy snowfall remains pile up against the sides and can draw a blank sunlight .
If you shovel by helping hand , pay attention . you could well jab the C shovelful through the nursery charge plate ( I have done it more than once ) .
If you have a lot of greenhouses , a snow blower is the putz of choice . The nose candy electric fan can remove snow from right alongside the wall of the greenhouse without create back pressure as a snowplow would .
Recommended Reads
How to Extend the Growing Season
Low Tunnel Tutorial : Winter grow DIY
The New Organic Grower, 3rd Edition
A Master ’s Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener , 30th Anniversary Edition
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