My outdoor garden beds are all cleared for the winter, but fresh, delicious vegetables are growing beautifully indoors - in a special greenhouse I had constructed several years ago that was inspired by Eliot Coleman, an expert in four-season farming.
Last week was cloudy and dreary here at my Bedford, New York farm. The deciduous trees are bare, my tropical plants are tucked away in their designated hoop houses, and all the precious boxwood shrubs and hedges are enveloped in protective burlap. During this time of year, it's nice to step into the vegetable greenhouse to see the lush, organic produce thriving.
Enjoy these photos.
This is the exterior of my Vegetable Greenhouse. It is located near my Equipment Barn next to the Hay Barn and one of three hoop houses. This structure uses minimal artificial heat, where many cold hardy crops, such as root vegetables and brassicas, can be grown and harvested through the winter months.
Most of the energy comes naturally through the big windows up above and all around the structure. These windows can be programmed to open for ventilation or cooling when needed.
We built 16 of these wooden garden boxes to fit the entire length and width of the space. Raised bed gardening allows good drainage, prevents soil compaction, and provides protection for those plants that may otherwise get trampled.
Having a greenhouse like this one means we can harvest a lot of vegetables all year long – I use spinach for my daily green juice. Spinach is an excellent source of vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, and a good source of manganese, magnesium, iron and vitamin B2.
The vegetables always grow so nicely inside this greenhouse. Just look at this cauliflower head. Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species Brassica oleracea in the genus Brassica, which is in the Brassicaceae or mustard family.
We also have broccoli in this greenhouse. It’s done so wonderfully indoors. To grow broccoli successfully, it must get at least six hours of direct sunlight per day or grow lights timed to provide the same amount of direct exposure. And they need room – each broccoli plant should be allowed at least a couple feet of overall space and six to 12 inches of soil depth.
All my plants are grown organically and have no chemical taste at all. This is the celery – also great for my daily green juice. Celery is part of the Apiaceae family, which includes carrots, parsnips, parsley, and celeriac.
Looking more closely, one can see the familiar crunchy celery stalks.
Here’s our bed of parsley. Parsley is a flowering plant native to the Mediterranean. It derives its name from the Greek word meaning “rock celery.” It is a biennial plant that will return to the garden year after year once it is established.
It’s a real treat to have lettuce like this through the year. I grow lots of lettuce for me and my family.
Some of these lettuces will be picked very soon.
And some will be ready in several weeks. All our vegetables are planted at different times as part of succession planting, a practice of seeding crops at intervals of seven to 21 days in order to maintain a consistent supply of harvestable produce throughout the season. I am a big fan of succession planting. This dramatically increases a garden’s yield, while also improving produce quality.
The Swiss chard stalk colors can be seen through the leaves. They are so vibrant with stems of red, yellow, rose, gold, and white. Chard has very nutritious leaves making it a popular addition to healthful diets. Swiss chard is part of the goosefoot family – aptly named because the leaves resemble a goose’s foot. The most common method for picking is to cut off the outer leaves about two inches above the ground while they are young, tender, and about eight to 12 inches long. Older leaves are often stripped off the plants and discarded to allow the young leaves to continue to grow.
Beet stems are also quite colorful in deep red. Beets are sweet and tender – and one of the healthiest foods. Beets contain a unique source of phytonutrients called betalains, which provide antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxification support.
Nearby – the newer beet sprouts just poking through the soil.
Kale is related to cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, and Brussels sprouts. There are many different types of kale – the leaves can be green or purple in color, and have either smooth or curly shapes.
Curly leafed kale is usually bright-green and tends to have a strong peppery flavor.
In this bed – beautiful growing turnips. When harvesting, I always gently remove the surrounding earth first to see if the vegetables are big enough. If not, I push the soil back into place. Turnips are smooth flat, round and white vegetables that mature early and are best harvested young – when they are up to two inches in diameter. The flavor is sweet and fruity, and the texture is crisp and tender. Both the root and the leaves of the turnip are edible. The leaves have a taste similar to mustard greens but with a less intense spicy flavor.
Also stored in this greenhouse is this grapefruit tree. Look at all the gorgeous grapefruits that are growing!
In another corner, Carambola, also known as star fruit, native to tropical Southeast Asia. It is a sweet and sour fruit that has the shape of a five-point star. The skin is edible and the flesh has a mild, sour flavor that makes it popular in a number of dishes.
This year, we also decided to try growing strawberries indoors. Homegrown strawberries are so tasty and among the easiest berries to grow. They are cold-hardy and adaptable and can be planted in both garden beds and containers. I am sure they will do very well in this greenhouse.
There’s nothing like the taste of fresh organic vegetables from one’s own garden. By the end of the week, the clouds disappeared and we saw sunny blue skies. Today, we’re expecting snow showers early and more clouds this afternoon with temperatures in the 40s.
If you grow these wonderful fruit trees, the best time to prune them is now - in winter - or in very early spring before any new growth begins. Pruning not only helps to develop proper shape and form, but also encourages new growth, promotes high fruit yield, and maintains good tree health. At my Bedford, New York farm, I have many, many apple trees that are pruned every year. Pasang Sherpa from my outdoor grounds crew tackled one of the ancient apple trees yesterday.
Enjoy these photos.
My fruit trees are always very productive. These were some of the gorgeous apples from last fall.
The fruit trees are extremely healthy, in part because of all the care and maintenance that is done to keep them doing well.
Here is the dwarf apple espalier in fall apple picking season – hundreds and hundreds of juicy, delicious fruits. I planted this espalier when I moved here. It is located just behind my long carport not far from my Winter House.
A good number of my apple trees are at least 50-years old, so they were already here when I purchased the property. Here’s one of the ancient trees, with lots of apples ready to pick. To maintain productive fruit trees, they need regular pruning once a year.
And now is the time to prune them. The tree takes up a dormant state after shedding its leaves and before sprouting new buds.
Mature apple trees have a semi-broad trunk with wide, spreading branches. Dwarf apple trees range from 10-feet tall and up, while standard trees can grow more than 20-feet.
The bark of an apple tree is generally gray, scaly, and rough to the touch.
This old tree, with its long branches is supported with natural wood crutches.
Here’s Pasang pruning. He is our resident tree expert and oversees all the smaller tree jobs at the farm. Pruning is best completed before growth starts as cuts will heal quickly. There are two main goals of pruning trees. On young trees, pruning encourages a strong, solid framework. And on mature trees like this, they usually already have their shape determined, so it’s important to maintain their shape and size. Traditionally, apple trees were always encouraged to stay shorter, so apples were easier to reach.
I prefer much of the work be done by hand. Pasang uses this STIHL hand pruning saw. Cutting by hand gives my trees a more natural appearance and shape. Smaller twigs are snipped off with regular secateurs. Each member of my outdoor grounds crew has a pair.
Pasang removes the water sprouts. Water sprouts are thin branches which normally grow straight up from lateral branches and do not bear fruit.
Dead branches, or those without any signs of new growth, are also cut, so the energy is directed to the branches with fruiting buds. Here is an example of a dead branch – the wood is dark and brown.
Pruning cuts should be made fairly flush to the branch from which it grew. The idea is to leave slight stubs. By removing any more, the remaining branch has too much of an opening for disease to enter. Here, one can see where a cut was made.
Here are some of the apple tree buds. Tree fruit have two types of buds, terminal and lateral buds. Apples flower and fruit on terminal buds. A terminal, or apical bud, is located at the tip of a shoot. A lateral bud develops along the developing shoot at the base of the leaf blade.
Pasang cuts branches that are rubbing or crisscrossing each other, preventing any healthy new growth. Basically, the goal is to create a tree with well spaced lateral branches. Any branches which interfere with the tree’s shape or create a dense framework should be removed.
Here, he removes crowded branches to help let in light and promote good air circulation.
Once a section is pruned, Pasang pauses and takes a look to make sure nothing was missed. The end goal is to encourage good fruit production.
Pruning stimulates the tree to grow more fruiting spurs by eliminating competing suckers and unproductive wood.
After the branches are cut, they are gathered, neatly piled, and then either saved for kindling or processed through a wood chipper to make mulch.
Here, one can see that the tree on the right has been pruned while the one on the left has not.
By late afternoon, this apple tree looks great after pruning. I am looking forward to many lustrous green trees heavy with fruits come autumn. Another tree done, with many more to go – keep up the good pruning, Pasang!
My collection of warm-weather plants grows more and more every year.
As many of you know, I have a sizable collection of tropical plants at my Bedford, New York farm. Yesterday, I shared photos of the specimens now stored in my newest hoop house located in front of my vegetable garden. Across the carriage road is another hoop house, where I keep many of my sago plants, dendrobium orchids, and other palms. During the colder months, all these plants are tucked away in their designated temperature and humidity controlled structures and checked every day to ensure they are doing well.
Here are a few more photos of my thriving potted tropical plants.
If you follow my blog, you may recognize this plastic greenhouse where many of my tropical plants are now stored. They actually spend about seven months of the year in these heated shelters. The entire structure is built using heavy gauge American made, triple-galvanized steel tubing.
These greenhouses work by heating and circulating air to create an artificial tropical environment. The temperature in a tropical plant greenhouse should never drop below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
This is Oxalis triangularis, commonly called false shamrock. It is a species of perennial plant in the family Oxalidaceae. The trifoliate leaves resemble a shamrock and can be green to variegated to deep maroon in color. The leaves close up at night or when disturbed.
And the white to pink five-petaled flowers bloom in clusters in spring to summer on stems held above the plant and also close at night.
Lysimachia nummularia, commonly called moneywort or creeping Jenny, is a low-growing, creeping ground cover native to Europe, but has naturalized in parts of eastern and northwestern North America where it can be found growing along stream banks, lake and pond margins, roadsides, ditches, and other moist, undisturbed areas. I often like to use it as underplanting around my larger plants. Mature plants form a leafy mat only two to four inches tall. It features rounded, slightly ruffled, leaves.
This is one of my sago palms, Cycas revoluta. I love sago plants – sago is a popular houseplant known for its feathery foliage and ease of care. This very symmetrical plant supports a crown of shiny, dark green leaves on a thick shaggy trunk that is typically about seven to eight inches in diameter, sometimes wider.
These are younger sago plants, which I have nurtured from small pups. Sagos are very slow growers, reaching mature heights between 10 and 12 feet in about 50 years.
Adiantum, the maidenhair fern, is a genus of about 250 species of ferns in the subfamily Vittarioideae. The genus name comes from Greek, meaning “unwetted”, referring to the fronds’ ability to shed water without becoming wet. Maidenhair ferns have delicate fan-shaped leaf segments, typically clustered on wiry black stems, and their leaves are smaller than other types of ferns.
A very different looking fern is the narrow sword fern – a lush evergreen known for its bright green, sword-shaped fronds. Each leaf is made up of many narrow, overlapping, sometimes twisting leaflets. And look closely, each of the leaflets has toothed edges.
Colocasia, or elephant ear, will switch energy resources in colder temperatures from producing leaves to flower and corm production. Do you know the difference between colocasia and alocasia, the other elephant’s ear plant? The easiest way to tell the two apart is by the stem attachment and the position of the leaves. If the leaves point up, you are looking at an Alocasia variety, while if those shield-leaves are down, it’s likely a Colocasia.
Here is another Colocasia – I bring a number of these plants to Maine during the summer months.
Lady palms have broad, dark green, fan-shaped foliage on tall stalks. They need to get east-facing exposure, out of direct sunlight, and thrive in comfortable indoor temperatures around 60-degrees to 80-degrees Fahrenheit.
On this shelf, made from boards and stumps of felled trees grown here at the farm, are dendrobium orchids, all evenly spaced to allow every specimen ample air circulation. Raising plants on shelves helps vary plant levels and saves much needed space. And, like many hoop houses and greenhouses, light from the sun enters the plastic and is trapped, keeping the interior several degrees warmer than the exterior.
The heater is checked a couple of times each day to make sure the temperature remains comfortably warm inside. On this day, the temperature was at 60-degrees Fahrenheit – still perfect range for these potted plants.
The foliage of philodendrons is usually green but may be coppery, red, or purplish with parallel leaf veins that are green or sometimes red or white. Shape, size, and texture of the leaves vary considerably, depending on species and maturity of the plant. I have many philodendrons that are growing so well here at Bedford.
The kentia palm has arching evergreen fronds that form from crowns. Leaves are pinnate, or feather-shaped, about seven feet long, with unarmed leaf stems. Leaves have a number of leaflets that bend downward in a graceful fashion and are about two feet long, dark green on top, and lighter green on the bottom.
This is a Bismarkia palm, Bismarckia nobilis, which grows from a solitary trunk, gray to tan in color, and slightly bulging at the base. The nearly rounded leaves are enormous and are divided to a third its length into 20 or more stiff, once-folded segments.
Bismarckia is a monotypic genus of flowering plant in the palm family endemic to western and northern Madagascar, where they grow in open grassland. The genus is named for the first chancellor of the German Empire Otto von Bismarck and the epithet for its only species, Bismarckia nobilis, comes from Latin for ‘noble’. I just visited the nation of Madagascar and will be sharing many photos of my family’s trip in coming blogs.
Inside the hoop house, we put a lot of attention into proper placement of each plant so we are able to fit many inside – without any of the plants touching.
Old hay bales, grown right here at the farm keep the structure extra insulated. I am fortunate to have these roomy hoop houses to keep my many plants looking their best until spring, when they are all brought out again.
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