Season-extending workshop features several designs
By Carol Stender
cstender@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 05/19/2010 3:37 PM
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LAMBERTON, Minn. — Hoop houses, movable greenhouses, quick hoops and passive solar greenhouses differ slightly in design but they accomplish the same thing: They extend the growing season.
Each was featured at last week's season extension day at the Southwest Research and Outreach Center in Lamberton.
The day-long event included a visit of the center's high tunnel. SWROC plans to build three more this summer.
While most of the season extension high- and low-tunnels are used for vegetables, studies are under way on ROCs at Morris and Grand Rapids and in on-farm studies to grow raspberries . The research is promising, said West Central ROC scientist Steve Poppe, who leads the study at Morris.
WCROC started the project in 2008. The high tunnel has an electronic system to lift the sides for ventilation and netting to keep out critters, he said. The high tunnel also has trellising for support and drip irrigation.
The first year, a cloudy day turned sunny and the high tunnel temperature climbed to 120 degrees, Poppe said. The heat "fried" the fruit for one season, but the project resumed the next. With thermometers and the electronic sides, temperature can be better monitored. The result is lush, ripe fruit minus the disease and pest pressures.
Raspberry canes are taller in the high tunnels and the fruit is heavier, he said.
Carol Ford and her husband, Chuck Waibel, are known for their unique growing season extension in Milan. Their operation, The Garden Goddess, offers Community Supported Agriculture shares for winter production. They grow some vegetables and garden greens in a passive solar greenhouse on their Milan city property plus root vegetables harvested in the fall.
They aren't the only ones using a passive solar greenhouse or season extending building, Ford said.
The passive solar greenhouse is easy to replicate and, when building it, they used "off-the-shelf" materials, Waibel said.
Any materials used in the greenhouse remain in the greenhouse, Ford said. Shovels used in the outdoor gardens aren't brought into the building.
They grow salad mixes in retrofitted gutters they hang from the ceiling. A soil mix, derived from season extending guru Elliot Coleman, is used.
They now have 15 shares in their CSA used by 18 families and they have a waiting list, Ford said.
In addition to salad greens, the couple also grows about a half-dozen vegetable varieties in the ground including broccoli, chard and Chinese cabbage.
They start production in the greenhouse in September, Ford said.
The greenhouse wasn't quite completed their first year of production and winds brought in aphids from a nearby soybean field. She discovered parasitic wasps were the answer to the problem.
Judy Harder of Mountain Lake will use quick hoops and a movable greenhouse on her Jubilee Farms gardens.
The movable greenhouse was constructed in December, so she doesn't have growing experience yet with the system. But the greenhouse will be used in a production style similar to Elliot Coleman's, she said. Throughout the season, the greenhouse will be moved over newly planted vegetables to provide good growing conditions.
Their movable greenhouse measures 30-feet by 48-feet and has an anchoring system and metal V-track for moving.
Harder is a registered dietitian and her husband is a physician, she said. They have 10 shareholders in their CSA. Extra produce is sold to the public school.