Greenhouse Growing: Extend Your Season

Unintentionally I've fallen into something that I find incredibly interesting and innovative. A few years ago we went to a farm to ask a few questions and find out what food was and how it was grown. It was November and our impatience to wait until the spring growing season left us with an incredible opportunity to learn and work with season extension.

Normally when we think of farming we think of the summer, but with a few tweaks, there's an unbelievable amount of food that can be grown all year round.

One incredible advantage of greenhouse growing is the head start or end of season extension we get just by adding some greenhouse cover protection like polyethylene covers.

I've recently taken on a temporary project helping with the Eli Zabar's Vinegar Factory rooftop greenhouses on the upper east side of Manhattan. Here the tomato season starts in may when the typical outdoor season isn't until July or August. Tomatoes on May 14th, what a beautiful thing and they'll produce right through the fall.

Now when I say innovative I don't necessarily mean groundbreaking fr humanity, just those of us who have never thought about growing food I the "offseason" months or growing food at all for that matter. One of the big reasons I continued to farm after Matt left for Miami and when I recently left Stone Barns has everything to do with the fact the there are some many new and interesting topics and questions that keep popping up.

I unintentionally found an incredible greenhouse 2 1/2 years ago and I intentionally continue to keep finding them and hopefully building them and using them.