After a week of cold weather (nights in the the teens) finally got some sunshine yesterday so spent a pleasant afternoon weeding in the hoop house. (One layer of plastic, no supplemental heat.) Am using row covers on the beds any time the outside temps go down in the low twenties and below.

I planted claytonia (miner's lettuce) my first year with the hoop house and let it go to seed -- now it comes up everywhere in the winter -- but that's okay, it feels like such a priviledge to be able to weed in the moist, green beds when there's snow all around outside.

Picked some of the mature claytonia leaves for salad, along with arugua, chervil and leaves from the Merville de Quatre Saisons (four seasons miracle) lettuce. Very delicious with home-dried tomato and shallot dressing.

Picked sorrel and made sorrel mayonnaise -- very lovely light green color. And as usual, cut some parsley, cilantro and thyme to keep in a glass on the windowsill in the kitchen to add to soups and sauces during the week.
Not bad for Z-4 during a particularly wintery November!

Have an unheated greenhouse that continues to produce lovely chard, plus two lettuces (Salad Bowl and Tango). Also parsley is doing well, and have spinach that is starting to get it's first set of real leaves (maybe too late), and another bed of the same two lettuces in the very young stage. When the lettuces are cut, they just grow back. I cover the beds with floating row cover.
Ann

I have 2 hoop houses that we use for winter greens production for sale and our own table. October and November were so warm here that two varieties of romaine lettuce bolted and I pulled them up today. I had some seedlings left and after putting a 5 gallon bucket of compost on the space, I planted the seedlings in that space. I still had a 2' wide bed empty along the south wall of one of the houses, 24', but pulled up some volunteer lettuce from one house to transplant to the empty bed. I have some onions that are already sprouting that I will plant for green onions and may just tuck in a few garlic cloves in the last bit of space.

We are expecting a cold front tonight with sleet/rain early in the morning. It's gotten colder than the forecast for tonight but I still don't have the beds covered with floating row cover, as per Eliot Coleman. My big worry is the water I used to help settle these transplants will freeze and damage the plants before it has a chance to drain away completely and dry.

I think I tolerate winter better now that I have those houses and can play in the dirt year round.

Faithling, I will have to remember to let some of the claytonia go to seed. I've had good luck with lettuces that self seed so maybe the claytonia will be successful for me, too.

Be careful what you wish for! That claytonia comes up everywhere and crowds out everything else that is direct seeded in fall. Its kind of interesting that the claytonia only seems to germinate in the fall/winter.

I agree about the hoop houses making winter more tolerable -- especially when the weather cooperates with sunshine and occasional thaws. But it gets extra depressing when temperatures dip into the teens and below, and the ground in the hoop house freezes hard. Last winter was so cold and cloudy, I didn't get to work the ground in the hoophouse from December to March!

Faithling, please don't throw anything at me but....as you see, I'm a full zone warmer than you and although we are advised to put waterlines at 4' deep to be sure they don't freeze, I've not yet had the soil in my hoop houses freeze.
The plants readily freeze and it amazes me to see them looking just fine again as soon as the temperature in the house rises above 32o.

Have you ever grown minutina?

I saw on the weather report at noon that you folks are expecting a real nor'easter this weekend. Take care and stay warm! It's 33o here right now and drizzling a bit mixed with some snow. UGH.

Looks like the big storm is tracking south of us. We've got arctic high pressure parked over us instead, keeping the storm out but driving the nightime temps down below zero! Can't be in denial about winter anymore! While the bitter cold is a drag, I'll take snow over mixed precip any day. Plus the fresh sugar coating on the forests, fields and mountains, sparkling in the sunshine makes it all worthwhile.

I tried growing Minutia one year but didn't find it very useful. It grew very slowly and stayed small, had sort of a tough texture and didn't taste like much. So its off my list. For a cold hardy green with serrated leaves, I much prefer Mizuna. In winter I pick the tender central leaves to add texture to my salads -- they resemble frisee but are much easier to grow.

Glad the storm is missing you. Dry cold, especially accompanied by high pressure, is much easier to take and far easier on the arthrithis. DH and I went to an auction preview late yesterday afternoon. When we left, the sky had cleared but despite the forecast for sun today, it's cloudy this morning. Again, UGH. DH bought a Tahoe in August and joked last night that he was waiting for a 24" snow to test the 4 wheel drive on it. At least, I hope he's joking. The last time this area had that much snow was before we moved here. My neighbor said he couldn't get to his cows to feed them for 3 days and he's got a huge modern tractor, enclosed cab, whole nine yards. We've got an old Ford tractor and blade but I don't think it could handle that much snow.

This is interesting! Due to our late summer and early fall heat this year, I opted to start all my hoop house crops in flats on the north side of the house for the shade. The claytonia and minutina was small when I transplanted out but they are about 5" tall now and recover quickly when I harvest it. I'm growing Tres Fines endive this year--isn't that the frisee?--and it's hasn't been any different from the other things. Maybe it's my stupidity, beginner's luck for that variety, whatever, but it's doing great so far. It didn't bolt like 2 varieties of romaine during our unusually warm fall. I pick from the outside in and anything that's too big goes to the goats or chickens.

Yes, the Tres Fines endive was what I referring to as frisee. That's great that it's growing well for you! I find timing for endive to be tricky. It doesn't do as well as some of the other greens for wintering over and can be hard to get going in summer for a fall crop. But its wonderful to have when the timing works.

I have much more reliable success with Belgian Endive -- have you tried forcing the roots indoors in the winter? Its really easy and fun.

BTW, the forecast yesterday was wrong and we are getting hammered with snow after all. 12" with more to come.

Faithling, how much snow did you end up with? Although it's still 55o here right now and raining, it's supposed to turn sharply colder tonight and change to snow. As warm as the ground is, maybe it won't stick. Parts of western MO are under a winter storm warning but we only have an advisory right now.

I don't have a place cold enough to store the roots without their freezing. I've read about the process in Elliot Coleman's books but never got to try it.

Started to email you privately but you aren't set up for that. I am if you would like to keep from boring everybody on this thread. I'm enjoying myself so don't worry about the rest of the world.

Well, there's not much traffic on this site so might as well have our private discussion in public. Maybe people can learn something useful -- like be sure to clean off your hoop house if it snows all day!!!

After a drowsy saturday in our warm, cozy house with the snow coming down steadily, we just totally forgot to go out and shake the snow off the hoop house. On Sunday morning, with the snow still falling, we looked out to find the hoop house had collapsed! Luckily we have a 6' wall on the north side so that created a little shelter for the duckies so they didn't get mashed. In the end we got 30" of snow! Not bad for a storm we weren't even expecting.

Husband heroically got the hoop-house back up so hopefully that crisis is over. But we're on to the next one -- after temps of -5 F this morning we're supposed to get 50 F with rain on Thurs! It's crazy. Our focus is now on getting the snow off the roof before the rain adds any more weight -- a crushed hoop house is nothing compared to a crushed house!

Good luck with the ice and snow you're expecting. Isn't winter fun!

BTW, for forcing Belgian Endive, you need a dark place that stays around 60 F. A closet on the north side of my house works great. Eliot says to use sand to pot the roots in but I found it too heavy to lug around. I use old potting soil instead.

Hi, Faithling. Computer problems have kept me off the forum but I think hubby and the ISP tech support have it squared away.

After the holidays I'm going to take a thermometer down to the basement to see if I have a space where the Belgian endive might grow. It sounds like fun. Any variety you can recommend?

I was in the grocery on Tuesday and was so wicked when I giggled at the high price and low quality of salad greens in the produce counter, knowing full well what beautiful fresh stuff I had at home.

Glad you got your hoop house back up and the ducks were safe. We had 8" of snow last Saturday but the wind was adequate to shake most of it off as soon as it landed. This was the kind of snow I don't mind at all. It fell on Saturday and was mostly gone by Monday afternoon! We can have some large amounts of snow but might not have appreciable snow for a couple of years at a time. That just makes it more dangerous when it does because each year, there is another crop of new drivers who have no experience on snow/ice.

If I don't talk to you again before, have a wonderful holiday season.

We are having the "Mother of all Winters" here. Tons of snow and occasional rain. Non-stop weather excitement!

Things are frozen solid in the hoop house now so I'm leaving everything alone to ensure a good crop in early spring. It really hurt to buy salad greens last week! Ouch. Luckily there's a local guy who grows greens for sale in barely-heated greenhouses so a least I can buy the next best thing to home grown.

I'm saving the belgian endive for our New Years party. I'm craven enough get a hit from impressing my friends with fresh produce in the middle of winter!

For seed I've been using a variety from Johnny's called Totem. I tried a red variety last year but it didn't turn out as well.

After a lot of trial and error, I now pot the endive roots in 2-3 gallon plastic pots in dry potting soil and store them in the root cellar. As I'm ready to force them I put each pot in a 5 gallon bucket and give the soil a good watering so it's soaked through. Then, after removing any standing water water from the bucket, put it in a dark 60 degree place with the bucket covered loosely (blocking light but not air). Then wait several weeks for the beautiful bulbs to form.

Happy holiday wishes to you and your family too!

I would love to have a root cellar but I don't think it gets cold enough here to really do a good job of chilling as I've read in the Bubel's book on root cellars. We have one spot on the place that is fairly convenient to the house with the desired northeast facing slope but it's in a major drainage for a lot of the yard. I have read about using hay bales to insulate a refrigerator or freezer. I have a freezer and lots of baled hay that is 2 years old. I should have plenty left at the end of this winter. I'm going to make a space in the barn and try that technique. I emailed a lady who had done this successfully to get more specifics of what they had done--I seem to remember that her climate was similar to ours. I know I'll have to put in some ventilation pipes as she encouraged me to do. The freezer was illegally dumped on us so I figure it's a no cost exercise if it does fail. Then I'll have to find another because it's great for grain storage to keep rodents away from the feed.

We have 8 apple trees and 2 pears trees in our yard and I have been offered a lot of fruit from trees no one wants to fool with any more. It killed me to decline some of these offers last fall because I didn't have time to process so much fruit. There was an ad in our local all ads paper in early fall for an old 2 tub cider press and we went to see it. Well, I think I could have tightened up the wobbly tubs but the press itself was really dirty and I couldn't think of a way to adequately clean it. I thought about a pressure washer but a lot of the wood was softwood, not a sound hardwood. The bug had bitten and I asked for a cider press for Christmas. I ordered it Monday and got a call from the manufacturer (Happy Valley Ranch in Paola KS, not far on the other side of Kansas City and we're about 150 miles east of KC) that they were shipping it today! It's possible I could get it tomorrow or Monday at the latest. I'm so tickled over this that I may just have to go to the produce jobber and buy some apples in bulk to try it out before next fall. I love apple cider and had a taste of pear cider last fall. Both are delicious and I love them hot with spices or cold. I'm going to clear a space for it in my "sewing room" to keep it indoors and hopefully cleaner than that old one we saw.

Sorry to hear that your hoop house is already frozen. I never thought of it as craven but I definitely get a kick from sharing anything I grow with friends. Most are, as you say, really impressed with the freshness, flavor, etc. of homegrown food.

I've started getting seed catalogs--Fedco just today--and I'm getting antsy to garden for real again. DH and I shredded a bunch of the leaves I brought home from town to spread on the garden. I've still got leaves in the yard to clean up too, but I can do that any time the grass is dry since we don't have a snow cover all winter. I usually mow with the grass catcher in place so they are mixed with grass and more or less chopped then put them around plants or on the garden. I've been turning the chickens out in early afternoon after most have laid their eggs and they are having a blast scratching through those leaves.

I'm about to fall asleep so I'll hush. Take care.