We started getting ready for the Winter program in October. This was our first mistake! We should have started much earlier. One reason was because we needed more time and money to build the necessary structures and make improvements to existing structures to support cold weather growing. With out the help of my grandson and some of his buddies we could never have done it. After building the structures we found out all the lights, heaters and fans needed, exceeded the power we had available in the existing garden shed. This was my first clue that we had taken on more then we bargained for. The last electrical circuit of three had the conduit and cable buried just the evening before our first blizzard and deep freeze around Thanksgiving, end of November. The ground froze that night. Meanwhile, "SO" was busy planting like crazy under the protection of all the new structures while still harvesting and storing the root crops like carrots, beets, potatoes and winter squash.
I ordered a book about growing for market through the Winter. It's supposed to be a Bible about what we had decided to do. Good thing I didn't read it earlier cause I would probably have had second thoughts and given up before we got started. This book taught me about my next big mistake. The title wasn't Winter Growing as I was thinking but rather "Winter Harvest". It took awhile but as the days turned darker and shorter along with snow covering all the hoop houses and the greenhouse; the light finally turned on in my brain and I realized I was approaching this all wrong! We had radishes that would only produce greens but no bulbs (A plant any little child can grow, right?) Same thing for beets, turnips and carrots and many other veggies behaved in a similar way. To grow these plants for Winter they must be planted in late August and September. Late October is too late. Luckily we still had plenty saved from Summer to last for awhile. Fortunately with a little artificial light and heat most spring greens will grow pretty well. We grew these during the Winter break in January thru February. We spent a lot of days clearing snow and digging paths through the snow to the garden structures. Every time it snowed we had to sweep the snow off all the hoop structures because we used plastic pipe for all of the bows. The third big mistake. Plastic pipe may do all right for Summer and warmer climates further south but not in the winters around here. We should have made metal bows. Now we know! We had a lot of our low tunnels collapse and the high hoops were damaged and needed constant attention to keep even a couple inches of snow swept off.
The book talked about low tunnels with hoops and row covers with wickets. Then there are high hoop houses and green houses. Now of these there are supposed to be cold houses, cool houses,warm houses and hot houses. All these are for different times and conditions. Didn't know what this was all about, but now we do and we have them all now.
Low tunnels are intended to cover plants growing outside and for holding them thru the cold. They are also used for early planting for an extended growing season and the low tunnels protect them till harvest time. Row covers on wickets (wire hoops) are similar, but for shorter periods as they are cheaper and faster to build, but not so durable. These are cold housing and hold plants into the Winter.
High Tunnels are similar, only they are big enough to stand in. We have several 12 feet wide of different lengths from 8 feet up to 66 feet long. Some of these are also Cold Houses which means no supplemental heat. You can start growing in them in late February.
Sometimes you can put small tunnels or row covers inside these high tunnels and provide limited heat inside the tunnels. These would be considered cool houses. Then you have high tunnels that have two layers of covering with an inflated air space between covers for insulation like a storm window. With these you can heat them and keep them warm enough to heat some in the coldest Winter months; these are known as Warm Houses.
Then there are the Hot Houses which are what most think of as a Green House. These are kept very warm to grow plants fast in the coldest conditions. I now know why they call them green houses even though the are white in color. Its because they take all your green (Money) paying the utility bills! My next big mistake! Not planning on utility bills that exceeded $800 a month. Having fresh salad greens to eat in the winter is nice but it is very expensive to grow them and not profitable in the coldest months.
Our Winter - Extended Season CSA Program included eggs and Variety Meats such as chicken, turkey, beef, pork, and some lamb and goat. We combined this with the Produce under the plan that if produce was sparse we would provide more meat. Which we wound up doing at great expense. But, the next mistake was not anticipating how hard it would be to get poultry and animals processed in the Winter. Also during winter, animals are stressed more by the cold, grow slower and lose quality. Also I never anticipated the extreme increases in feed and fuel we had during the Winter which made the meat more costly to supply. These were costly errors which will take some time to recover from.
In summary we learned a lot and now have far more capacity to grow earlier in the Spring and later in the Fall. We can also grow some veggies under cover we couldn't grow before. Summer CSA Members should benefit a lot from this. If we do this program again next winter the Produce will be separate from the Meat. Meat will not be offered unless it is already processed and in the freezer.
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