Greenhouse Hoop Adjustment

We took advantage of a nice day wedged between rainy ones to do some work out in the greenhouse tunnels. Yesterday in the drizzle we opened them all up wide to let them get some rain and air out, knowing that it would stay above freezing over night.

Today we had to cover them back up for the coming week (this time of year it's too dark too early to try to get it done after work), so we harvested some veg for Sunday dinner, cleaned out dead and dying leaves, and clamped the plastic back into place.

As we did that, though, we decided to break down the hoops from this bed:

Kirk harvested the last beets out of this bed yesterday afternoon, so all that's left is a row of Swiss chard that's been picked at all season long. We decided that a better use of our greenhouse materials would be to cover our leek bed instead:

So we moved the greenhouse hoops and plastic to cover the remaining leeks. You can see that some of the leek leaves are sticking out the bottom, but that's not really important – they end up getting cut off anyway. Leeks are really hardy, but we wanted to keep the soil warm for as long as possible. Once it freezes, it won't necessarily kill the leeks, but we wouldn't be able to harvest them until the spring. We're hoping that this is just enough to keep them dig-up-able.

By the way, you can tell it's a nice day when Fletch hangs out with us as we work – did you notice him in the first photo? The chickens were out and about as well, scratching at leaves and bugs and nibbling at greens. They were excited to get out of the run for a bit. An afternoon out in the garden is good for all of us to keep the winter blahs at bay!