Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: hoophouse tomatoes

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "William McKay" <bmckay55 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: hoophouse tomatoes
  • Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 11:17:55


Regarding your plans to grow winter hardy greens, you should be able to do
that with no problem and no heat. The trick is having a second layer of
insulation inside the plastic. What works best is heavy weight remay cloth
kept off the plants either with hoops made of # 10 wire or if you get fancy,
some supports made from 1/2 inch pvc pipe.

I have some photos on my web site showing the hoop house in the dead of
winter with lettuce flourishing (well as much as it can flourish when it is
-3, but at least it survived) and remay covers.

FYI, my experience with this is that small plants (eg, baby lettuce,
arugula, buckthorn, chicory, endive, etc do better than fully mature plants
and loose leaf plants do better than those with heads (the ones with heads
tend to get some rot down where the stem goes into the soil.

Also, check the guru of all this, eliot coleman. He did a couple of books
on using unheated greenhouses. IF I remember correctly, the latest (and
most useful) one is Winter Harvest Manual.

Bill McKay in E. Massachusetts and www.growitalian.com Distributor of Italian Vegetable Seeds from Franchi Sementi, spa, Bergamo, Italy. Seedsmen since 1783.




Plans are to grow winter hardy salad greens during the next
several months with possible row covers on colder nights. If it gets
extremely cold I might stick in a small kerosene heater.



_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page