Here on our hopeful-for-spring-weather vegetable farm, we've got our onions in the ground, and our cabbage, and our early pac choi, and our fennel, and our endive and escarole and radicchio. They're in the ground, and they're also shivering, what with snow four or more times since they've been transplanted.
Our carrots and beets and salad turnips and radishes and snap and snow peas are in the ground too, in seed form, and nary a one of them have popped up their heads yet, not surprisingly. (We do hope, however, that by the time you are reading this article, in May, there will be lots and lots of little green heads poking up.)
But the greenhouse? Now that's a different early spring story, and it's a story we New Hampshire farmers like a lot. Of course, back in our younger, brasher, more foolhardy days, we wondered about greenhouses. Sure, one greenhouse was all right, as a propagation tool, especially in northern climes, but multiple greenhouses?
What's with all this plastic, what's with all this irrigation, what's with all these thermometers and heaters and fans, what's with all this artificial coddling of plants? Let's get them out in the natural world, where they will grow hearty and brave and strong! (Not to mention, of course, that out in the natural world, i.e., the garden, we also use irrigation, and occultation tarps, and row cover, all made of various plastics.)
But then we two farmers got to be a little older, a little tireder, a little less hearty and brave and strong ourselves. We began to wonder if farming was all it was cracked up to be, considering all the uncontrollable variables of soil and air and water, hungry deer and woodchucks, bugs on plants and bugs on people (oh, those black flies! and oh! those ticks!). Then of course, there is the weather, and climate change, which are two separate issues: weather as in what's happening today, and climate change as in the really big, long-term picture.
Now greenhouses, for example, give you really good weather. Gee, it's warm in there on a cold day in spring, when you're nearly out of firewood for the house, and the sun is shining, and you've got your nice little propane heater to back things up. And gee, the seedlings love that greenhouse weather too; why, it's like a paradise of steady dependable warmth and water, and friendly farmers beaming at your green beauty.
On the other hand, aren't greenhouses themselves contributing to climate change: all that plastic, remember, all that irrigation, those fans and heaters and thermometers, all that industry and manufacture of questionable products, in order to grow food that's healthy, organic, and sustainable?
Hmmm. Sometimes we wonder if we have done the right thing(s) in our farming. We now sport four greenhouses on our little place, and they are not all that beautiful, and they are not all that cheap, and they may not even be all that sustainable, in the long run. But by golly, we love them.
First there are the obvious benefits: protection from the elements (including snow, hail, winds, frost), steady water, early and late season warmth, more robust production, and beautiful vegetables, all of which lead to better sales, and to a workable budget. Thus: happy seedlings, happy vegetables, and happy
farmers, thanking the garden spirits for the glory of greenhouses.
We anticipated all of these advantages, but we did not forsee the fringe benefits of multiple greenhouses: after years of picking cherry tomatoes in the rain, for six hours at a stretch, it is bliss to kneel on a straw mulch pathway, and listen to the cold rain pouring on and sliding off the plastic, rather than pouring on and sliding down your neck.
It is bliss to have such beautiful tomatoes, with so few cracks, thanks to regular watering, and so very many of those tomatoes. Cherry, slicing, plum or paste, all sizes and colors: red, yellow, pink, green, black, white, puuple, orange, rainbow.
It is bliss to be able to plant our greens in the greenhouse and actually harvest more greens than weeds, as the weed population is much less under controlled conditions.
It is bliss to have red peppers hanging heavy and sweet on the plant: a record of thirteen ripe at once on a single plant!
It is bliss to have that first tender head of lettuce from the greenhouse in late May, that fragrant basil in June, those early summer squashes and kale and chard.
It is also fun to try some greenhouse experiments: how about early spinach on the edges of the pepper beds? How about scallions next to the tomatoes? How about we try some snap peas inside?
It's hard to imagine our farming life without greenhouses, and even harder to imagine farming at all without a little bit of love, a little bit of bliss, and a little bit of fun.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, May 6-12, 2020