Post-Storm Hoop House Greens!

Post-Storm Hoop House Greens!

We’ve had about ten days of snow and temperatures, sometime daytime as well as nightime, in the single digits. We’ve had over two feet of new snow, which is good, because it insulated my one experimental hoop house where I planted cold-hardy greens. There’s one row each of chard, laccinato kale, bok choi, and arugula, plus I started komatsuna seedlings in mid-October (they’re tiny). I also transplanted a row of scallions between each row of greens, since they’re the one thing I buy most often during the winter.

Here’s what the hoop house looked like before I dug up the edge of the plastic on the far side to take the photo above. I really did not expect anything to be green in there. It was zero or below for three or four days straight. In my past experience, even the most cold-hardy greens succumb at that point. So it was a delightful surprise to find things still looking green and alive in there when I peeled back the cover.

We’ll have to see whether they survive. Everything is green, but the soil is frozen, and so are the bok choi. I cut a few bok choi this morning, as well as some arugula and chard leaves, and managed to pull a couple of scallions. I still don’t know if this is going to work over the course of the whole winter, but so far, things are green, if not necessarily available. The experiment continues ….

3 thoughts on “Post-Storm Hoop House Greens!

  1. Hey Katie, you could definitely grow stuff over the winter under plastic there. Check out Ed Bruske’s DC blog The Slow Cook. He does a lot of gardening in your area. For cold-weather stuff, Eliot Coleman is the expert, his books are what got me all experimental this winter.
    Oh and btw, the cut greens, that were pretty frozen, were just fine after sitting on the counter for an hour or two. In the fridge now, waiting for breakfast.

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