January har­vest

Linda Crago runs Tree and Twig Heirloom Vegetable Farm in Wellandport. This win­ter she started post­ing pho­tos of her har­vest on Twitter. Beautiful green swiss chard and arugula that she was grow­ing in January! How does she do it? Does she have some kind of veg­gie grow op in her basement?

No, she has an 84 foot long hoop house. Which is essen­tially a wooden frame with green­house plas­tic stretched over it, this frame is placed over a raised bed, giv­ing her a gar­den she can har­vest from all year long. “One of the keys is to have agri­cul­tural fab­ric. It’s a poly­ester fab­ric that floats over the bed and the crop grows under­neath it. A lot of peo­ple use it to grow organ­i­cally and avoid insect prob­lems.” Crago explains. She is able to use the har­vest in the CSA bas­kets that she sells and for restau­rant orders from esteemed restau­rants like Niagara’s Inn on the Twenty, Wildflower in Font Hill and Treadwell.

“The veg­eta­bles freeze overnight but they don’t die. They thaw out by mid-morning and then I can har­vest.” she explains.

” They taste dif­fer­ent after they’ve been frozen, sweeter. I wasn’t a fan of raw chard until I tasted it like this.” They may freeze at night but the house stays warm in the light of day, forc­ing Crago to strip down to her t-shirt when har­vest­ing. “On a day like this, it’s 80 degrees in there. You can take a lawn chair out and sit in the sun.”

Indian Runner ducks and her­itage Mottled Java hens live out their peace­ful retir­ment in the hoop house at Tree & Twig farm

She sells veg­eta­bles and eggs from her farm and being veg­e­tar­ian she makes sure her lay­ing hens have an idyl­lic life. “When the chick­ens get too old to lay they live out their retire­ment in the hoop house. It has been a chal­lenge keep­ing them out of the veg­gies though.”

Sturdy win­ter greens do best, she rec­om­mends plant­ing miner’s let­tuce, arugula, col­lards, kale and Asian greens like tat-soy. Her favourite though are the mus­tards, like Green Wave, Giant Red and mizuna. “In the spring when the days get warmer they sprout flow­ers. Beautiful yel­low and white mus­tard flow­ers, they taste amazing.”

Through care­ful har­vest each plant can con­tinue pro­duc­ing through­out the win­ter. Taking a few leaves here and there keeps the plant intact to pro­duce more leaves.

Just think of it, an end­less sup­ply of greens from your back­yard. Spring is com­ing, maybe it’s time you got started on your own hoop house garden.

“People say you can’t eat local year round and that’s just not true.” she says, and it’s thanks to inspi­ra­tional grow­ers like her that we can all be loca­vores 365 days a year.

all pho­tos by Linda Crago

The 84 foot hoop house at Tree and Twig Farm. City dwellers can eas­ily make a much smaller version.