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.

Harvest Update

The days are getting cooler and fall has truly come to the Local Food Project garden. Tomato production has slowed down, but we’re still harvesting lots of sweet and hot peppers. We’re picking overflowing baskets full of tender green beans. And the LFP crew is harvesting new plantings of fall greens—Encore lettuce mix, Minutina (a succulent micro-green), Arugula, and Tatsoi. Even after first frost, these greens will keep growing—as long as we keep them protected with row cover.

Fistful of Baby Carrots

Growing carrots in our Virginia clay soil is always a challenge, but the Local Food Project crew has been carefully tending a test bed of four different varieties this season. We’ve weeded and thinned and loosened the soil and weeded again. Now we’re harvesting our first sweet and crunchy baby carrots! We have creamy-colored White Satin, shockingly vibrant Purple Haze, bright orange Nelson, and small round Parmex. Picked straight from the soil, this fistful of carrots smelled fresh and delicious—the hard work was worth it!

Harvest Update

Fall is right around the corner and the Local Food Project crew is preparing for new crops of cool weather greens while continuing to harvest record yields of tomatoes. From meaty Brandywine to juicy Pineapple, prolific Virginia Select Roma to smoky Nyagous, the LFP crew has a lot of picking to do! Peppers are taking off and ripening up in the hoophouse—Corno di Toro, Lipstick, Joe’s Long Cayenne, Chocolate, and more. Other staples of the harvest include lots of Bright Lights Swiss chard, sweet storage onions, and a wide variety of summer squash. There’s also the first fringes of fall lettuce mix—perfect for pairing with summer’s last tomatoes! See more photos in our online album.

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!

Harvest Update

Tomatoes are here! The Local Food Project crew harvested the first of our Sun Gold cherry tomatoes last week. The wait was worth it! These sweet-tart little jewels just taste like summer. Other summer crops in our recent harvests include Cocozelle zucchini, Adam pickling cucumbers, Mangan eggplant, and Corno di Toro peppers. Our broccoli plants are still producing nice heads and we have plentiful onions and leeks. View more photos from the LFP’s harvest days.

Harvest Update

As we harvest out the last of our spring lettuces, other crops are ready to take their place! From onions and leeks (nearly 8,000 in all—wow!), to baby potatoes (French Fingerling and Russian Banana), Gonzales cabbages and Gypsy broccoli, the Local Food Project garden is full of good things to eat. Airlie Center’s chefs always seem eager to see what’s coming next! And they’re waiting patiently as we prepare for our first tomatoes in just a few weeks. View more photos.

Lots of Lettuce

The Local Food Project crew is harvesting baskets and baskets of crisp, crunchy lettuce these days. Pink-tinged Fireball, frilly green Nevada, and tall ruffled Concept all appreciate the wet, mild weather. We planted the little seedlings close together (six inches apart in four rows) and began harvesting them out as baby lettuce heads. Now they’re all growing fast and we’re supplying bountiful lettuce for lots of fresh salads for Airlie guests.

First Hoophouse Harvest

What makes baby pac choi so exciting? These beautiful little bundles (about six inches in length) were the first produce we harvested out of our passive solar hoophouse! Planted on October 15, these “Mei Qing” pac choi (also spelled bok choy) went from the soil to the Airlie Center kitchen on December 10 where they starred in a delicious buffet for the Center’s guests. View more photos of our first hoophouse harvest.

December’s Colorful Harvest

The first day of December dawned cold and gray, but these brilliantly-colored beets made the garden feel as festive as the tropics! Surviving the frosts under swaths of row cover, our “Chioggia” (red) and “Golden” (orange) beets are a favorite of Airlie Center chefs and are among the last of our 2008 field crops.

Another heartening find was this perfect head of “Red Cross” lettuce, still prettily ruffled, crisp, and unharmed by frost, deer, or groundhog.

From Garden Bed to Dining Room Buffet

So how do Local Food Project veggies, herbs, and berries make their way from the garden to the buffet table at Airlie Center? Check out our online photo album for a visual tour of the trip.

You’ll see plants getting their start as tiny seedlings, growing, being harvested, washed, delivered, prepared, and presented for the enjoyment of Airlie guests. Start the tour now!