Arugula, Class, Snow & Winter

Four inches of snow sits atop beds of arugula in the Local Food Project garden- meanwhile, winter sowing of arugula and greens carries on in the LFP Passive Solar Hoophouse. As we wrap up a year full of workshops and seminars at Airlie Center, we look forward to our January 2010 Conference- Nordell & Martens: Culture in Cultivation, featuring a small vegetable farm powered by draft horses, and a 1,300 acre organic grain operation with custom milling of animal feeds.

Winter, where the harvest is soooo sweet, literally! That's because the cool temps concentrate sugars in cool weather crops, from carrots to kale to yes, arugula. If you have ever wondered why your garden carrots are not that sweet, is may be partially due to the temps of the soil during harvest. So many crops that are bland or even bitter during the summer and early fall take on an entirely new flavor in the fall and early winter.

The key becomes how you keep these crops alive in the garden for that sweet harvest.

At the LFP garden, we believe in simplicity. Metal hoops (you can cut your own using any decently thick steel wire) straddle our three ft. wide garden beds. Over these hoops, we drape floating row cover, a poly-fabric that provides a mild amount of frost protection (a few degrees), but creates a temperate, wind-free environment in which cold-tolerant greens and roots (like radishes, carrots & beets) can hang around and sweeten up until harvest. The row cover comes in varying thicknesses and price, but we like to use the stuff that is in the middle- not too light, not too heavy.

So when it snows, the cover will at least provide a little buffer between the plants and the snow, provided the snow is not too heavy. It is truly amazing to dust off the snow, and uncover a dazzling green bed of crispy greens amidst a winter wonderland!

For heading deep into winter, a hoophouse is the way to go. It's the same concept of providing a little protection for the crops with hoops and a covering, but the hoops are much larger and the covering is a high-grade plastic. In the LFP garden, we have a 30x72 ft. gothic frame hoophouse. The frame came from Ledgewood Farms. The plastic, vents, and end-wall paneling came from Griffins Greenhouse Supply. We harvested and milled all the white oak baseboards and door framing ourselves, with the guidance of experienced timber framer Eric Westergart.

And that brings us back to winter. I encourage all gardeners to go for a winter harvest, which is essentially an extension of your fall crops via a little protection from the elements.

View from a Ladder: The Evolving Garden

It’s been a busy year for the Local Food Project and there’s no better way to get perspective on all the changes than to climb up on the sixteen foot ladder and get a bird’s eye view of the evolving garden. We can take in the entire boundary of the expanded fenceline and see how the sections we newly tilled this year fit in with the overall layout of our growing space. We can look down on the passive solar hoophouse and realize how big a role it’s playing in our summer vegetable production. We can gaze at two new herb garden areas (the heart and the baseball diamond) and check out the progress of our sprouting buckwheat cover crop. And we can look forward to a productive fall and winter season, with our eyes already on plans for next spring. The view from up here is amazing!

Small Space Gardening: Feed a Family Garden

New this year, the Local Food Project crew laid out and planted a small scale garden designed to feed a family of four. The 700 square foot Feed a Family Garden—with a mix of short and long beds, a variety of popular crops, and a fun zig-zag pathway—demonstrates how a family might create a small veggie-growing plot in their own backyard. We used a broadfork to loosen the soil—an easy and inexpensive (not to mention quiet!) alternative to using a tiller that family members of all ages could help with. We’re also monitoring the effects of our nearby oak tree on the Feed a Family Garden (shade, water, roots, etc.). View photos.

The bounty of this new little garden has produced a lot of food! We’ve harvested more than 7 pounds of Swiss Chard, 12 pounds of zucchini, 3 pounds of cucumbers, 30 pounds of tomatoes, and a 7-pound watermelon. Visit Sixteen Foot Ladder again to see updates on the yields!

We’re Fenced In!

The Local Food Project crew wrapped up constructions of a new fence last week—protecting all of our favorite veggies from deer that seem to love them even more than we do! The freshly harvested cedar logs we installed for the corner posts give the garden a fun fortress-like feel. Black plastic mesh fencing, ten feet high and zip-tied to metal poles, ensures that deer won’t jump over the top. And swaths of tall bamboo woven into the gates create an airy invitation to guests wandering over to visit.

Staking out the Fence Line

It’s time for the Local Food Project garden to get a new fence. Along with two local farming friends, we spent a day clipping snap ties from posts, rolling up electric fence line, and clearing vines from the black mesh deer fencing. We’ve staked out the boundaries for the new fence, which will include the hoophouse and compost piles, along with more space for future garden expansion. We’re also excited about putting up a new main entrance, which will draw visitors in with an inviting shaded arbor.