Spring Is in the Hoop House

Reader Contribution by Ilene White Freedman
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In the greenhouse I get a jump-start on spring. In February and March, when I start to itch for warm weather, I step into the hoop house and pretend it’s spring already. On a sunny day it can be 70 degrees in there. I could sell tickets to my Florida-style hoop house in Maryland. Planting seeds into trays is easy work and slows me into the vegetable farming season.

Everyone is still wrapped up in scarves and gloves, and I’m shedding layers in the hoop house and playing in the dirt. I welcome my job list because it satiates that desire to begin the warm growing season. Before emerging spring days take the edge off the crisp air, I am in the hoop house mixing a soil blend and starting onion seedlings. These first couple weeks of March, it’s warmer and I’m starting other seeds — cabbage, scallions, kohlrabi and an early batch of

tomatoes.  By April, I will have to drag my soil mix container out in front of the hoop and pot-on tomato plants outside because it feels like August in the hoop house, in April!

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