Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman

Author:Eliot Coleman [Coleman, Eliot]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 1999-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Fig. 60 The Covered Garden: Greenhouses and High Tunnels

The Mobile Greenhouse

A mobile greenhouse can be moved from one site to another. A few commercial growers in Europe have used mobile greenhouses for much of this past century. They allowed the growers to get maximum return from their financial investment in a greenhouse.The houses sat on railroad wheels and rolled on iron rails. The rails extended two, sometimes three or more times the length of the house. A sample cropping sequence might go something like this: An early crop of lettuce is started in the greenhouse on Site 1. When the spring climate is warm enough so the lettuce can finish its growth out-of-doors, the ends are raised and the house is wheeled to Site 2. Early tomato transplants, which need protection at that time of year, are set out in the greenhouse on Site 2.When summer comes and the tomatoes are safe out-of doors, the house is rolled to Site 3 to provide tropical conditions during the summer for transplants of exotic melons or greenhouse cucumbers.

At the end of the summer, the sequence is reversed. Following the melon and cucumber harvest, the house is returned to Site 2 to protect the tomatoes against fall frosts. Later on, it is moved to Site 1 to cover a late celery crop that was planted after the early lettuce was harvested. Following celery, Site 1 is planted to early lettuce again and the year begins anew.

The classic mobile glass greenhouse was quite a piece of work. Although heavy and expensive, it was elegantly and ingeniously constructed. We copied the inspiration, not the expense. Instead of iron wheels and rails, we have wooden skids sliding on wooden rails or metal skids sliding on the ground. Our mobile tunnels are much simpler and much more manageable than the glass galleons of yore.

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