Backyard Vegetable Gardeners: Go Get a Hoop House for Winter!

Reader Contribution by Laurie S.Z. Greenberg
Published on November 9, 2011
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Do you grow your own vegetables and live in a cold climate? Do you spend too many months of the year longing to get your hands in the soil and eating greens grown by somebody else while waiting for spring to arrive?

I did until two years ago. On a cold October day I was out cleaning the garden, cutting my losses, saying goodbye to my annuals and putting my yard to bed for the winter. For several years I had eyed a garden bed that faced south and ran along the back of our house. Was this the year to pick up some recycled windows and experiment with a small cold frame?
 
One thing led to another. Why such a small winter experiment? I could take advantage of the full 18’ length of the garden bed!  We had been members of a winter CSA for more than 15 years. The farmers, just 12 miles south of us, grew spinach all winter in a hoop house. Every other week, from October through April: we got a bag (the size of a basketball) of fresh, squeaky, sweet spinach leaves. If our local CSA farmers grew greens all winter long, couldn’t I? 

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