What a winter. Boy are we glad its over! Well, we think its over, isn’t it? Hard to tell today.
In the middle of our Christmas vacation in BC, we got word and pictures of our collapsed greenhouses. It was devastating news. Immediately upon our return, we began removing the destroyed pieces and replacing them with new parts, purchased and assembled with wonderful help from Fixed Coffee and Baking and their customers, Murray’s Horticultural Services and the Murray family.
One year to the day that we first put plastic on them, we put new plastic on the newly assembled frames. It was a calm sunny and warm day. It felt good to be back where we left off. Then, a few days later, the first forecasts came in for that huge March storm. On the night of the storm, we removed snow from the sides and sadly, cut the new plastic off one house before it collapsed in the gusts. We realized just how vulnerable our structures are. We now have them strapped together and to the ground which is reducing their shaking in the strong winds. We plan to remove the plastic in the late fall and hopefully reuse it in the spring. We will also remove it in the event of a hurricane or post-tropical storm.
So far so good and now there are plants it the ground! One house is full of kale, another of lettuce, Napa cabbage, and seeded with radishes, arugula and baby kale. The next one will be planted up next week, and a small recycled fourth house is up that will also be planted up in the next couple of weeks, or as soon as the weather warms a little!!!
Other projects this Spring included a new and improved wind-fence across the field to protect both crops and greenhouses…its unsightly rope guy lines should be covered in Scarlet Runner Beans this summer. And, a fifth recycled greenhouse is also slowly being assembled, hopefully done by mid May, in order to grow trellised tomatoes and cucumbers.
We learned a lot last year, our first year growing vegetables at this scale, and it feels great putting those lessons in place this year to improve our efficiency and increase our output. No more kale shortages!
Murray Meadows Farm 