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bloomingamaryllisrmg

Extending our season

Hi all,

I'm curious as to what methods you've used to extend our vegetable growing season. As in black tarp, cold frames, pvc tents, etc. I haven't tried any, but I'd like to start the season earlier and later.

Comments (7)

  • digit
    16 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Bloomingamaryllis, I believe you are referring most directly to extending the growing season. Id like to put in a quick word for extending the harvest season of various vegetables. Selection of varieties that produce early and late and succession planting can extend the season of nearly every vegetable. Instead of a brief couple of weeks, harvest can be stretched out to a couple of months.

    As far as extending of the growing season - - I only try to mitigate the first frosts of Autumn by running sprinklers. But, getting an EARLY start is given a far stronger emphasis.

    After leaving a job at a commercial greenhouse, I continued raising plant starts in the much narrower confines of the south windows of my utility room. Before long, I built a small lean-to greenhouse. Later, the greenhouse was enlarged and became, essentially, a "sunshed." All of my peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, etc. begin life in the sunshed.

    I have often set up tunnels in the yard or garden using plastic film and pvc pipe. These were fairly modest affairs, usually 4 feet wide. A few years ago, I began using a 10Â by 20Â tunnel. This simple structure covers 2 raised beds and a center path. It is about 5Â in height and the center path has been excavated to a depth of about 16 inches.

    This little "hoop house" enables me to plant directly into the ground and either move the plants later to the outdoors or continue growing them where they were seeded. The plastic cover goes on in March and comes off in early June. Asian greens are the primary crop grown in the hoop house altho various warm-weather vegetables are transplanted under the plastic. For instance, I probably wouldnÂt be able to grow bitter melon and Malabar spinach if these plants were moved directly from the heated sunshed into the open. Having a few weeks in the hoop house allows them a good start for when the plastic comes off and they are exposed to the open air. They will remain in this location for the remainder of the growing season.

    The Asian greens are the stars of the show. I have talked a little about them on the RMG thread linked below. The hoop house is unheated but sufficiently warm so that I can direct seed these cool-weather greens a month before that would be possible outdoors. Therefore, we begin enjoying fresh veggies from the hoop house during the first few days of May. A bowl of greens thinned from the hoop house beds.

    Since the first week of May, we have not only been harvesting out of the hoop house but weÂve moved plants out of the hoop house and {{gwi:389611}} them into the outdoor garden. Harvesting those plants began about 2 weeks ago. As of today and except for the Chinese cabbage, they are nearly gone. But, we have begun to harvest what was directly sown outdoors in May  so, we havenÂt missed a beat. (And yes, weÂve been enjoying beets, also. ;o)

    With greens, we could extend the season even a few more weeks into the Spring. The bok choy and such could be started in the heated sunshed in February and transplanted into the beds in the hoop house. I donÂt see any reason why we couldnÂt be enjoying stir-fries sometime in March. If I begin doing this, more ground will be needed, however. The hoop house is already fully utilized beginning in March. I guess, IÂll just need to build another one of these things.

    digitSÂ

  • david52 Zone 6
    16 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    How do you keep your hoop house from flying to Chicago?

  • digit
    16 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    David, rebar is driven in the ground for securing the pvc hoops. The plastic film is held down with bricks and concrete and by lathe nailed to the door and window frames. Finally, I run rope over the top.

    This might not be sufficient except that there's a board fence on one side, a greenhouse on another side, and a garage/carport on the third. It is a VERY protected location so other than a little "bouncing" in heavy wind, the hoop house has never come close to blowing away.

    digitS'

  • bloomingamaryllisrmg
    Original Author
    16 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I've heard of using large PVC as a holding tube for the smaller hoops. I'm think if you did this maybe you could screw a hole through both and loop some wire through the holes to help hold it down and on really windy days have a slit on top to help alleviate some of the pressure.

  • cnetter
    16 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    This is how I extend my season. These pics were taken over a month ago. Most of the plants had been in there a month or two already and quite a few seeds were started in there. This is why I already have a few tomatoes set on my plants, and the toms are blooming quite well now. These cold frames are roughly 15 years old. They may not be pretty, but they are very very useful. :
    {{gwi:298779}}

  • jaliranchr
    16 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    You might get some ideas in this CSU pdf. I bought a bunch of the christmas bulbs but it was still too snowy to mess with this past spring. I do use two cold frames that I built using the specs I found here at CSU.

    Good luck with your plans!

  • nrynes
    16 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I do like digit (PVC hoophouse) but instead of plastic sheeting, I now use a mid-weight row cover that comes in LARGE sheets. I hold it down with lots of large rocks - survives the wind and hail just fine (I'll try to get a pic of mine and post it here).

    I planted my spinach, collards, and other greens out there mid-March, and can harvest reliably through Oct if I plan correctly. Here where out last frost is often early June (like last week!!!) and our first frost is usually late Aug to early Sept, my hoophouse is a necessity for harvesting anything! It also protects everything from hail quite nicely (my plastic sheeting couldn't handle some of our hail storms).

    Nancy