Design

Chade and Tuscan kale with tomatoes beyond On a garden tour last weekend, I saw both small-scale and commercial scale hoop-houses being used.  They were similar in being used in summer and had sides rolled up to provide airflow. preparation for winter greens (erzly spring) The "homeowners" hoop-house was a shared one;  the gardeners who established it on a nearby (to them) lot estimated that it could feed 6 families (with vegetables) over the course of a year. I was totally impressed. Neighborhood hoop house This hoop-house had tomatoes and eggplant that were huge (in comparison to my open-grown ones), surrounded by healthy-looking blocks of Tuscan kale and redbor kale (hmm, now, in late June...)

I have more than enough vegetable seeds already, I'm sure, both for my own use, and to donate to grow as transplants for Garden Fest , a South Carolina Botanical Garden event in April that encourages folks to grow their own vegetables. And thanks to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Renee's Garden Seeds , with their policies of distributing extra seeds from last year's packaging for non-profit use, I should be set for my outreach activities, both in classes and in our demonstration gardens. Hmm, so why am I still looking at seed catalogs?  It's fun, of course.  Fortunately, ordering potatoes, leeks, and onion sets helps satisfy the urge to order more seeds.... Next year, I'm going to have low hoops covering some of my vegetable beds (in the mountains and the Piedmont) -- then, even with snowy conditions, I'll be able to harvest kale, collards, and other hardy winter greens.  And, there's an unheated hoophouse at the middle school around the corner in the ...

I'm doing another three-season vegetable gardening program tomorrow, this time for our Osher Lifelong Learning program. Amazingly, 24 people are signed up - a remarkable number, it seems to me, and totally encouraging as interest in vegetable gardening! In my own vegetable garden, my beds are turned, lots of cool-season vegetable seeds are sown, and I've got flats of lettuce mix, greens, and arugula going. I'm plotting with my fellow garden educator about growing fall greens in an unheated (and unused) hoop house at the garden where I work.  Hmm, that sounds like fun! We actually have two hoop houses as possibilities (in our after-school greenhouse, my Sprouting Wings colleagues have added water containers painted black, to provide radiant heat, so it may be more congenial than the totally unheated hoop house.)