Last fall I created some low tunnel hoophouses over some vegetables to extend the season. They are very pieced-together: rib supports of springy high-tensile wire someone didn’t want, some low fencing sections, and wire cages, and covered by leftover strips of plastic given away by a real hoophouse builder. They covered beds of celery, carrots, kale, cabbage stalks, lettuce, kholrabi, and swiss chard. And a few radiccio that hadn’t done anything by the time it froze.

The edges of the plastic are held to the ground by stray bricks, rocks, and a few terracotta pots. Money spent on my creation: $0. The system was great in November, and then froze solid and immediately was buried under snow for the duration of December and January. I felt sheepish and ridiculous every time I looked at the things all winter, but this week we got a big thaw, the snow disappeared, and I was able to slog through mud to peel back the plastic. And I got a nice surprise.

Things are growing under there! Amidst lots of dead stems and leaves, there are new greens ready for salad. The mizuna did the best. It was too peppery to eat much of by the end of the summer, but the frilly new growth is tender and mild. Chard and kale are coming back too. The new little leaves stand in for lettuce.

So we had a great midwinter salad, and the hoophouses earned their keep, haphazard as they are. I even threw in a few new seeds of cornsalad and spinach for hopes of an early start. Perhaps we can upgrade our cobbled mini-greenhouses this year, but for now….. they worked!