Enter the Greenhouse
Another week… another blizzard? Are we the only ones who feel like this winter is never ending? The weather in New England is anything but predictable, which is why one of the biggest part of farming, especially in Massachusetts, is adaptability.
That’s why, over the past (almost) decade, we’ve turned to one of farmers’ most trusted allies: The greenhouse. In the northeast, we already struggle with a short growing season, late frosts, freak blizzards (anyone remember that unexpected snowstorm last April?), so we can’t rely on Mother Nature alone to provide us with the space and environment we need to grow.
Enter the greenhouse.
All year long, it’s home to our greens program, and allows us to grow lettuce and kale and spinach, even when the weather outside is less hospitable to tender, leafy plants. In early spring, it houses our darling little starts, provides them with the warmth and shelter they need to germinate and root, and protects them from killing frosts so they can grow big and strong before we move them outdoors come May. As the season progresses, it becomes home to our more sensitive plants, the ones who prefer a hotter growing environment, like tomatoes and eggplant. In the fall, it becomes our season extender, the tool that enables us to grow food through that last market in November, even when the daylight hours shrink and the temperature drops. Over the winter, it houses our flock of laying hens and protects them from the harsh New England weather.
Simply put, we wouldn’t be the farm we are without our greenhouses. We have small DIY ones that can barely fit two of us standing side by side; recycled greenhouses we’ve reclaimed and repaired and put to good use; carports turned greenhouses — remember what I said about adaptability? And this year, with the help of our family, we were finally able to step up our game and built a proper greenhouse that we hope to outfit with electricity, water, and everything we need to really change the way we grow.
But we still have a lot more work to do, and winter and spring are the time for infrastructure improvements like these! Unfortunately, it’s also the slow season, the time of year when we don’t have markets or farm stand traffic to provide us with reliable income. That’s why our CSA program is so crucial to our success—really, why so many farms rely on their community to buy into their farming dreams and support their goals during the off season. Farming is, after all, a community effort, so can we count on you to help out this year?
