The hoophouse is earning its keep this month, as tender greens have emerged and made it into our salad bowl. Planted from seed in mid September, red russian kale, Bloomsdale spinach, arugula, broccoli raab, lettuce mix and radish greens are all harvestable now. Outside right now, its about 40 degrees, cloudy and sleeting. Inside the hoophouse the temp is holding around 60. The night time temps have been in the 30’s and 20’s, but the plastic hoop traps all the sun’s heat during the day, keeping the greens inside above freezing. And boy are they tender!

We chose these greens for their cold tolerance. Spinach and kale are especially forgiving of temps in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, and we expect to have these the longest. Since we are past the true growing season, these plants won’t grow nearly as fast as they would have in the summer, meaning they’ll stay small and tender longer. Going into November we can expect colder nights and days, and fewer daylight hours.

We hope to be able to harvest our hoophouse greens until the first week of December.