Fresh Greens in Hoophouse

In September, I wrote a blog entry about Tom cleaning out our hoophouse and letting the chickens in there to help clean up the weeds.

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2012/09/hoophouse-chickens.html

After this was written, he planted lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, kale and arugula in there.  At this point he had to bar the chickens from the hoophouse because he discovered (the hard way) that they love to scratch around in newly tilled ground!

That was about 3 months ago and this is what the hoophouse looks like inside now.

Hoophouses are generally unheated and crops are planted in the ground inside them.  They are also called "high tunnels" and there is lots of information available about them on the internet.  Here is one good site:  http://www.hightunnels.org/

It has been so warm this fall that the greens are growing quickly and we have a lot of them.  However, as we get on into the winter, they will slow down a bit.  But, for the time being, we are enjoying the bounty and sharing it with our farmers' market customers at our local winter market.  We are fortunate to have a nice, warm indoor location for our winter market courtesy of Northern Oklahoma College here in Stillwater.