Inexpensive Greenhouses extend season

If you would like to extend your growing season, but have never considered a greenhouse due to cost or the difficulty installing, the good news is there are other options available.  For less then $350, you can get an 8'x10' "tent style" greenhouse at our Amazon General Store.  These photos show one of these greenhouses in Madison, Wisconsin with some very healthy pepper plants producing lots of fruit in pots in late September of this year (2011).

With a small electric heater, you could extend the growing season even longer, though it would not make much sense in a cold climate like Wisconsin to run the heater through the coldest months of December, January and February.

To install one of these Greenhouses, you can either install them on bare ground or lay treated 4x4s or 4x6s in a rectangle on the ground and use landscape spikes to secure them.  Then you simply screw the base pieces to the wood base.

Growing Hops

Hops are the female flower clusters, shaped like small cones, of the plant Humulus lupulus. They are primarily grown for their properties of flavoring and stabilizing beer.  Hops impart a crisp, bitter flavor, which has become favored over using other herbs in beer-making, due to their antibiotic effect that works with well brewer’s yeast at the expense of less desirable microorganisms. 

It is believed that the traditional herb combinations that were once used for ales hundreds of years ago in Bavaria were abandoned when hops recipes proved to be better tasting and less susceptible to spoilage.

The hops plant is a perennial, which grows as a vigorous climbing vine.  It is usually trained to grow up strings or other supports, and can reach lengths of up to 14-20 feet in a single growing season.  Most commercial production of hops in the United States comes from the Pacific Northwest, but hops do very well in colder regions as well.  Historically, hops have been grown successfully in New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

T-Farm tried a very small trial of hops this year and the results were encouraging.  Paper mulch and straw was used to suppress weed growth, and only organic fertilizer was used.  Irrigation was provided as needed.   No sprays of any kind were used and the vines developed healthy leaves and a small number of nicely formed hops.  The first year of growing hops typically results in a very low yield, as the plants are just getting established, and spend less energy on developing flowers.

In mid-September, the hops cones were harvested and then dried in a food dehydrator set at 100 degrees for about 8 hours.  (We sell several food dehydrators in the "Food Drying" section our Amazon General store.) If you don't properly dry the hops within a short time-period, you must use them right away as "wet hops," or they will loose potency or deteriorate. 

The dried hops were then put in FoodSaver bags, and the oxygen was removed to prolong their storage.  And yes, we do sell FoodSaver machines and bags in the "Food Storage" section of our Amazon General store.  These bags can be stored on the shelf for about a year, or placed in the freezer for even longer.  This is a nice method to use for the small hops grower as all of the tools and equipment necessary can be used to dry tomatoes and other garden produce.  All in all, it looks like hops is a great plant to grow if you have the space and take the time to establish a support and watering system for the vines. 

Now then, what to do with the hops…

Heirloom Tomatoes 101

First off, what is an heirloom tomato?  According to respected tomato experts Carolyn Male and Craig Lehoullier, heirloom tomatoes can be placed into the following four categories:

1. Commercial heirloom tomato.  These are open pollinated tomato varieties more than 40 years old.  They were introduced by seed companies before 1960.
2. Family heirloom tomato.  This refers to favorite tomato varieties whose seeds have been  saved and passed down from generation to generation.
3. Created heirloom tomato.  These tomato strains have been crossed deliberately using two heirlooms, or an heirloom and a hybrid, to have certain characteristics.  Initially a hybrid, it becomes dehybridized through saving and replanting the seeds for about 5 seasons, until it grows consistently true to what the grower has in mind.
4. The mystery heirloom tomato.  A tomato which arises accidentally from natural cross-pollination or mutation in the garden. This is the way most heirloom varieties originated.

Over the last few decades, seed companies have largely sold hybrids in place of heirlooms, bred largely for their commercial appeal.  This trend has, unfortunately, led to a great loss of genetic diversity.  The hybrids tend toward a thick-skinned uniformity which has led to many pulpy, boring tomatoes that many of us loath to purchase and eat.

By planting, harvesting, buying and eating heirlooms, you can help to re-establish a richer world, with more variety and better tasting tomatoes.  Only by growing different varieties in a specific area can a gardener or farmer learn what varieties are best suited for their growing environment.  This is an old-school approach that still makes a lot of sense in today's world, because it ensures a more diverse collection of plants over a larger geographic area.   T-Farm is committed to growing heirlooms, and this year about 80% of our tomato varieties are heirlooms, like the unusual Italian variety shown in the photo above.  Please support these efforts by buying, planting and eating heirloom varieties.