Cold frame growing

Do any of our members grow delicious greens through the winter in cold frames or hoop houses? this would certainly be the time to discuss them. I follow another blog I found linked up at Backyardchickens, and it seems a lot of folks are doing just that [where weather permits] and enjoying fresh tasty greens all winter long. In addition, i have seen an upsurge in folks planting kitchen gardens, and even more extreavagant layouts, as the economy falters and unemployment bennies run out.

:grin:

We have a very modest (small) "Fall" veggie garden growing right now. Winters are usually so mild here on the Texas Gulf coast that I can get by (gamble) on no hard freezes without a greenhouse/cold frame.

That can be a big gamble sir! I was there at JSC for the winter following Ike, and it was freaking COLD! For a Florida boy anyway. We actually got a couple of inches accumulation of snow. I hadn't walked on naturally occurring ice for over twenty years at that time. But then, as quickly as the arctic air came in, it left, and we had days in the low sixties and nights in the high thirties. Weird weather.

I guess the closer you are to the air over the Gulf, the more moderated your weather is/can be.

Good luck with the veggies, and if you need any open pollinated heirloom seeds, I have close to fifteen pounds of a myriad of varieties. All hardy and prolific as well, and where possible, indeterminate.

I built a hoophouse last fall and grew lettuce and carrots over the winter.

It was roughly 6 ft wide by 16ft long x ~ 4ft high. The lettuce was a nice treat throughout the winter, although the rate of growth did slow down.

The inside temperature was about 20-30 deg F higher than the outside on sunny days.

I also had a remote temperature sensor in the hoophouse so I could monitor the hoophouse temp from inside the house.

Materials consisted of a 2x4 rectangular box frame that I laid on the ground, conduit (the cheap gray electrical stuff) and 6 mil clear plastic. I stapled 16ft long 1x2's to the long edges of the plastic to keep the plastic in place, but also so that I could roll up the plastic roof (either halfway to the apex of the roof, or all the way over to the other side of the roof) to gain easy access to the veggies.

ancona said:

That can be a big gamble sir!

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Well, like I said, it's a very modest (small) garden. I can actually cover it with an extra, left over storm door I have for a makeshift cold frame if I need to. It's not so much a gamble when so little was invested (maybe 10 plants growing).

Its on my list but rather than just grow veggies, the perfect solution to growing / foodstoring / survival, is aquaponics.

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/information.html

An enclosed system with zero waste, protein and veg always available and as fresh as it gets.

Ok the fish need feeding and youve got to keep the water moving, so pumping has to be reliable, with backup.
And hardly any space is needed to produce enough to feed a family.

For carnivore fish species you might start a wormery in a compost heap and for veggie eating fish theres some recycling of waste but I believe they do better when given some 'proper' fish food.
So rather than storing beanz, <redacted - see forum guidelines on epithets>s or weed, store fish food ......

Aquaponics also ticks the engineering fun box.

I just gotta decide which location would be best and bloody well DO IT.

Rblong, this does look like such a cool project. I looked into this too about a year or two ago and also added it to my "fun and useful" to do list.

Speaking of fish, another thing on the to-do list is to try to stock and grow Talapia (I don't have property with a lake or pond yet, but when I do....)

Has anyone else thought about growing Talapia?

On another site I frequent, we have a section about food storage/gardening/hot houses etc. There are a number of us who have extensive gardens, hoop houses and cold frames. I am happy to share my hand saved open pollinated heirloom seeds with whomever wishes to garden food for themselves and family. Simply PM me and let me know what you are looking for, and I will send you what I can. We have a SHITLOAD of seeds, and since I am a world class enthusiast, I am happy to see anyone get interested to teh point they actually bust sod and start a garden. It is hard work, but also extremely rewarding. Remember, the first year is by far and away the hardest and typically the most disappointing. Get over it. By year four, you will feel like a freaking expert.

While I am by no means Farmer Brown, I can help anyone who grows with my insight and share my failures. We learned a tremendous amount in the few short years we have grown, but remember, I live in Florida and have four distinct growing seasons. Now that we have a hoop house, we're "first in the dirt" around here, so our few years actually equate to double that for a northern climate grower.

Don't be shy, because I sure as hell 'ain't!

I plan on visiting the 1 million pounds of food on 3 acres guy in Milwaukee in February. Wisconsin winters are usually at the peak crappiness in Jan/Feb time frame. It is literally only an hour drive from me. Upon seeing how he does it first hand I will probably try and adopt similar methods here for winter growing.

There is a discussion thread dedicated to aquaponics (not to take this thread off topic):

http://www.pmbug.com/forum/f6/1-million-pounds-food-3-acres-105/

Unobtanium said:

Has anyone else thought about growing Talapia?

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not heard of these Unob, so you had me googling around for em.

They look like they could work just fine in an aquaponic setup and it looks like they are herbivores.

BUT then i found this -

http://www.tilapiafarmingsite.com/

just another get rich quick wheeze ?
No short cuts in real life, so perhaps a mix of herbivore species in the aquaponic tank that includesTalapia, which look like a bloody good foodsource and could be small enough for Do Chen not to get too squeamish about prepping em :wave:

another off topic strike for the light emmitting hand then )-:

and look what I found almost immediately on PMB's link -

Aquaculture is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a re-circulating system. Growing Power uses Tilapia and Yellow Perch to fertilize a variety of crops and herbs using aquaponics. Aquaponics is the method of growing crops and fish together in a re-circulating system. In the Growing Power aquaponics model crops grow vertically on raised beds.

http://www.growingpower.org/aquaponics.htm

ancona said:

On another site I frequent, we have a section about food storage/gardening/hot houses etc. There are a number of us who have extensive gardens, hoop houses and cold frames. I am happy to share my hand saved open pollinated heirloom seeds with whomever wishes to garden food for themselves and family. Simply PM me and let me know what you are looking for, and I will send you what I can. We have a SHITLOAD of seeds, and since I am a world class enthusiast, I am happy to see anyone get interested to teh point they actually bust sod and start a garden. It is hard work, but also extremely rewarding. Remember, the first year is by far and away the hardest and typically the most disappointing. Get over it. By year four, you will feel like a freaking expert.

While I am by no means Farmer Brown, I can help anyone who grows with my insight and share my failures. We learned a tremendous amount in the few short years we have grown, but remember, I live in Florida and have four distinct growing seasons. Now that we have a hoop house, we're "first in the dirt" around here, so our few years actually equate to double that for a northern climate grower.

Don't be shy, because I sure as hell 'ain't!

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Thanks Ancona for the offer of gerosity. I started vegetable gardening about 5 years ago. And it is very true about the first 1-2 years being the hardest work (but also very enjoyable if you like this kind of thing). You learn alot just from reading, but you also learn alot when you get in and actually start doing.

It took me 3 years to "discover" that aged horse manure worked into the soil was the gold that really made the difference in the productivity of the soil.

Other organic sources like leaves and grass clippings also helped, but nothing came close to horse manure.

In addition to that, I would mulch in between rows with a horse manure/bedding/sawdust mix. This kept weeds at bay, kept the mud down, and also decomposed and fed the plants throughout the growing season.

There is an art to keeping weeds at bay via cultivating the soil between rows with a hoe (lightly turning the ground when weeds are small), but I don't yet have the patience for that, so I take the somewhat more labor-intensive method of mulching between rows with the horse manure mix, or with whatever organic material I have handy at the time.

I started with a somewhat small garden area the first year and then hand-shovel dug to increase the garden area to ~ 4000 sq ft during a span of 5 years, adding as much organic matter each year as I could to the soil.

I found that saving seeds from the crops for next year's planting was a fascinating exercise in itself. The book "Seed To Seed" was a great reference for learning more about this. I only saved seeds from the easy varieties for which you did not have to worry about cross-pollination.

I only did the seed saving for one year, as it took more time that I really had available. If things get really bad, at least it is a learned skill that can be drummed back up if needed.

As far as the Talapia goes, it would be a small scale effort for an additional food source for family/friends rather than trying to do it for sale/profit. Talapia is one of our favorite fish, so it would make a perfect addition for the future farm.