How five households in the Hudson Valley are harvesting food year-round from an unheated greenhouse

1. The Winter Bounty Project

2. What if you could get locally grown radishes like this in
December? Without going to a supermarket.

3. Or salad greens like this in January? Straight out of your garden.

4. What if you could grow cilantro for a Super Bowl Party dip, and
harvest it fresh on game day?

5. How about pulling carrots and harvesting herbs and greens for a
fresh salad in January?

6. What if we told you that all of the food in the preceding slides
came from this greenhouse in New York’s Hudson Valley?

7. This unheated greenhouse.

8. Our project was inspired by Eliot Coleman, a Maine farmer who
grows food commercially in unheated greenhouses and has
written about his successful experiences. In 2010, five families
in the Hudson Valley decided to test Coleman’s approach.

9. In August 2010, our Rimol greenhouse was delivered to a field
in Stanfordville, NY, owned by one of our members.

10. In August and September, the greenhouse went up.

11. Fortunately, the rep from Rimol was interested in our project,
and he came to help.

12. We all joined the project for different reasons and brought
different skills. Some of us were expert gardeners, and others
were novices. Some were better than others at building things.

13. We all shared concerns about food treated with pesticides,
crops grown in distant locations, which affects flavor and
freshness, and the fossil fuels used to transport food. All of us
love to cook and eat.

14. While the greenhouse was going up, garden beds were being
created.

15. If you look in the background, you can see some beds that have
already been planted.

16. This kale was planted in August, because we needed to bring it
to maturity by December. Keep in mind, this is a winter harvest
project, not a winter growing project.

17. From December to February, when the days are shortest, there
is very little growth. We also chose cold-hardy plants, especially
varieties recommended by Eliot Coleman.

18. One chilly day in late September, the greenhouse was finished
and rolled over the beds of growing plants.

19. The greenhouse is on wheels.

20. This is one of Eliot Coleman’s innovations. Two people can
move it.

21. That allows for crop rotation. This picture shows our first winter
configuration. The next year, we planted and harvested in the
bed between the rails in the foreground.

22. Soon we were harvesting things like this kale and these black
radishes.

23. And lovely heads of lettuce.

24. By mid-December, these crops had assumed a second layer of
protection. By using the greenhouse and fabric row covers, we
gained two horticultural zones. So under those covers, it was
like Gainesville, Florida, even though there could be snow or
subfreezing temperatures outside.

25. If it warmed up, we could remove the covers to allow the plants
to absorb some sunlight.

26. But there were many overcast days when we left them covered
all day. This was the winter of 2010-2011, when we had 65
inches of snow in the Hudson Valley!

27. That year, we often only removed the row covers for harvesting,
and frequently did that in winter gear. If it was overcast outside,
it could be quite cold inside—even below freezing. Because of
the row covers and the careful choices of crops, the plants
thrived.

28. Our second winter was unseasonably warm, and the row covers
weren’t used as much. On one February day when it was in the
50s outside, it was shirtsleeve weather inside.

29. That’s because it was 80 degrees in the greenhouse—even with
the doors opened!

30. One of the things we loved was how sweet the plants were in the
winter. We learned that plants develop sugars in response to cold
as a sort of antifreeze to protect them. It made them delicious.

31. A lot of people ask us about watering. During winter, the plants
require no watering. But we have a well and solar-powered
pump to use when it’s warmer.

32. For awhile, we were doing a lot of hand-watering.

33. Then we experimented with this gravity-driven drip system. It
wasn’t terribly effective.

34. This year, we rigged a system that comes directly from the well
pump through a series of hoses. It is in place from March to
approximately November.

35. We grow using organic methods, so here is a cover crop that
was eventually tilled under to provide soil nutrients.

36. We have soil testing done and use the recommended organic
amendments.

37. We like to encourage pollinators, so we don’t use any
pesticides.

38. That means we have to tolerate intruders like this cabbage
butterfly, who is thinking about laying eggs on the collard
greens. We use an organic-approved substance called Bt to
control caterpillars.

39. We’ve been encouraging bug-eating bluebirds and tree
swallows to take up residence.

40. We get an assist during warm weather from garden spiders.

41. We garden on this site year round. In the summer, we grow beans,
eggplants, peppers, and squashes.

42. And a bumper crop of tomatoes in 2011!

43. We grow most of the summer crops underneath, with the side-
and end-walls open. Our group’s gardening experts believe that
plants like tomatoes do better when protected from rainfall;
they aren’t as susceptible to blight. This is when the drip
irrigation comes in handy.

44. Even during high tomato season, it’s already time to think about
winter. Here’s a row of leeks in August, started earliest because
they are slow growers.

45. In September, the winter garden bed for Year 2 is well
underway. There are those same leeks at top left, and carrots,
beets, turnips, and lots of greens. We did have trouble with
excessive rain brought by hurricanes and with caterpillars
during the fall growing season.

46. In the fall, we shifted the greenhouse over that winter bed, and
just in time, because of the October Surprise snowstorm. Our
summer garden bed is covered with snow in the foreground,
but our winter crops are well protected, along with a few
tomato vines that we brought inside for ripening.

47. Other people are trying similar projects on a smaller scale.
These low tunnels were constructed with about $20 worth of
hardware and helped a neighbor to extend his growing season.
In some cases, cold frames could do the same work.

48. We are not commercial. We think of ourselves as a collective.
The greenhouse provides produce for five or six households at a
time, and we provide most of the labor. It’s a labor of love.

49. In addition to the benefit of harvesting fresh, green vegetables
year round, we gain an enormous psychological boost from
being in the greenhouse when it’s cold out, smelling the soil,
shedding our winter coats. On a sunny day, it can be 20 to 30
degrees warmer inside than out!

50. We’re proud of what we’ve learned and accomplished and hope
to inspire others to do the same. What a great project this
would be in a school setting, and wouldn’t it be great to have
commercial operations producing local veggies for us to buy
year-round?

51. winterbounty.wordpress.com
We have a blog with lots of day-to-day reports, chronicles of
successes and failures, and a handful of recipes. If you live in or
are visiting the Hudson Valley and would like to visit, you can
contact us via the blog.

52. “All the world’s problems can be solved in a garden.”
—permaculture expert Geoff Lawton
All photos except slide 48 © Lisa M. Dellwo.
Do not copy or use without permission.