A Garden For All Seasons
Forget those blanched, out-of season tomatoes and wilted, travel-weary heads of lettuce lining your grocery store shelves. Whether you live in Maine, Montana, Mississippi, you can reap fresh produce straight from the garden year-round. Let planting guru Eliot Coleman show you how to beat the seasons.
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Above: Barbara and Eliot's home greenhouse, where it all began. The couple has since turned their four-season harvest concept into a commercial enterprise, much to the delight of local restaurants and markets. Of late, these retailers have shown special interest in fresh carrots, tasty minutina and ready-to-eat radishes.
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Issue # 178 - February/March 2000
A Garden For All Seasons
Gardening on the back side of the calendar
by Eliot Coleman
Like most fresh homegrown vegetable enthusiasts, I have never wanted the garden to end. That doesn't mean I longed for an endless summer; I love the pleasures of fall, winter and spring. I just wanted year-round, freshly harvested food on the table. Somehow I always knew there had to be a simple way to combine cold-hardy crops with a little climatic protection during the colder times of the year. I am delighted to report that the results of 20 some years tinkering with this idea have proven me right. But first, some background on now it all came about.
I was inspired to turn my winter gardening dream into reality back in 1981, when I took on the job of farm manager at a private .school in Vermont that grew most of its own food. In addition to rigorous academic studies, the school stressed practical experience on its farm as part and parcel of a student's education. But at the time I arrived, the reality of the farm experience for the students was mostly limited to livestock care. From the end of fall vegetable harvest in early October - when canning, freezing and the stocking of the root cellar were completed - until the start of spring planting in May, there was no production of fresh garden vegetables. I was convinced we could engage both the minds and stomachs of the students more effectively if they had more hands-on garden experience.
I would, however, be working against historical fact. The school year was originally designed so students would be in school only during the cold winter months (nongrowing season) and would be available to work on the family farm during the summer, when many hand, were needed to help with the crops. Although this traditional schedule is modified slightly in some areas (such as in the potato-growing districts of northern Maine, where some schools still open in August and then recess for the potato harvest in September), it is too well established everywhere else to think of changing it. If I wanted the students to grow fresh vegetables, they would have to do it during the school year.
I was determined that it should be a serious, productive effort. I had little interest in providing a gardening experience that merely focused on protecting warm-season crops against frosts for a few struggling, unsatisfactory weeks into the fall. Nor did I wish to limit our production to the traditional hardy leftovers of the summer season. I was keenly aware that if teen-agers were to be inspired, the effort would need more charisma than a field o Brussels sprouts. But budget constraint, dictated that a large, heated greenhouse was out of the question. So my first choice was the cold frame. It has always been the simplest and least expensive climate moderator for the gardener of limited resources. Years ago, on a trip to Europe, I had seen large-scale commercial production of hardy winter vegetables in cold frames. And even though cold frames are no longer considered commercially viable, that matters little in a school or home garden setting where there's free land, free labor and where the spirit of hands-on group effort gets the job done.
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