Free Shipping on Orders Over $ 100 *
client Service|Privacy Policy
Enter your email to sign up for our newsletter and save 25% on your next order
The Netherlands — a country two - third the size of West Virginia — is ranked second in agrarian export book behind the United States . Their surreptitious weapon ? glasshouse and hoophouses . These protected structures appropriate you to assure the environment , resulting in maximal resource efficiency , higher yields , and in the end high-pitched profits .
draw inspiration from Dutch agricultural practices , Andrew Mefferd has created a comprehensive guide for growing plants in protect construction to optimise yields .
Small and begin growers have never had easygoing access to information about how the professionals do it , well as , a valuable , up - to - appointment resource for experient grower . From seed to cut-rate sale , The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower ’s Handbookwill have you develop like never before .
The excerpt below is fromThe Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower ’s HandbookbyAndrew Mefferd . It has been adapted for the entanglement .
Why Protected Culture?
The condition “ protect civilization ” refers to the practice of growing plants in a structure plan to protect them from environmental stresses and improve the growing surround .
Though it ’s not see often in North America , “ protected culture ” is unremarkably used in Europe to describe the full range of protect growth , from the unsubdivided unheated hoophouse to the fanciest heated greenhouse .
I trust to help the term gain ground more utilization in the Americas as protected culture assume on an progressively important function in the food production system . It ’s a ready to hand terminal figure to have when you need to verbalize about protected growing in all its forms .
The Dutch Influence
You may not be surprised to learn that the United States led the Earth in agricultural exports in 2015.What might storm you is that the Netherlands range second .
Area - wise , this is like West Virginia issue forth in second to the entire rest of the United States , except that West Virginia is just about a third turgid than the Netherlands .
So it’s really like two-thirds of West Virginia coming in second to the rest of the US.
To put it another way of life , the 134th largest country in the universe , with the sixty-fifth big population , come in second to the 3rd prominent country by both arena and universe . How ?
innovative nursery proficiency are a big part of the reason why the Dutch have such an oversized agricultural outturn , especially in the categories of veggie and ornamentals , which they direct .
When I learned about the Dutch leadership in protected culture , I require to do it how many of the Dutch glasshouse innovations would exercise on smaller farms .
I decided to come up out by put them to work on my own farm and in the test at Johnny ’s to see how well they fared in gloomy - technical school situation . The brusk answer is : Most of them influence really well in smaller options .
One of the foundations of Dutch greenhouse growing is planting crops as densely as possible.
On my farm , we were able to go from get some 1 ton of tomatoes in a 30 × 48 - foot ( 9 × 15 m ) hoophouse , to 2 piles , mainly by tack from single rows to double , doubling the act of plants we put in the hoophouse and therefore also the yield .
But it was other techniques , like using both sports fan and dress to encourage dear airflow , and accurate temperature and humidness direction to keep the crop healthy , that allowed us to plant that dumbly without call for problem .
These techniques can help make smaller farms more productive, profitable, and competitive with produce on the commodity market.
Though they have been used to maximize productivity in some of the largest green - house in the humans , they are scalable and can increase productivity on small farm without sacrificing quality and sustainability . In fact , by increase the yield per unit of remark , they may be able to increase the sustainability of many operations .
The basics of the Dutch greenhouse system are:
Hoophouses and greenhouses are expensive to work up ; the area inside is precious literal acres . By memorise from these technique , you may get the most out of your protect space .
The Importance of Protected Growing to Local Food Systems
Protected horticulture is one of the most important path for local food producer to contend with industrial agriculture . consumer are used to a food system of rules that can turn in them almost any solid food at any time of the year .
Industrial agribusiness identifies the best berth to grow a particular crop , acquire it there , and ship it everywhere else , taking advantage of idealistic production conditions , economies of scale , and cheap transportation .
Our intellectual nourishment system has swung a long way in the focussing of centralization , and protected civilization is an important part of re - regionalization .
Local food producers face two major challenges when it comes to taking market share back from industrial agriculture.
The first is geographical : In much of the coun - try , most produce is seasonal and not originate year - circular , so consumer — specially in cold clime — have few local selection in the wintertime for certain popular vegetables .
The 2nd challenge relates to yield and market - ing in that many hoi polloi see solid food as a trade good to be purchased as cheaply as possible .
So local intellectual nourishment producers have to either visualise out how to equate the Mary Leontyne Price fix by the industrial food arrangement , or differentiate their food so consumer will pay more for it .
My view is that we reached the high - body of water mark for industrial food in the United States sometime in the seventies or ’ 80s . reckon that if you go back far enough , almost all food was local ; long - orbit ecstasy systems did not exist for perishables .
The imported food that was available, like sugar and spices, was expensive and nonperishable. Fast-forward from 1780 to 1980.
Refrigeration technology and the interstate shipping system made it possible to deliver produce anywhere in the land ( and beyond ) .
By the late twentieth century , most food for thought yield was centralized in area with the most favorable outdoor conditions for a given crop . Take kale , for lesson . Today somewhere between 50 and 80 percent of U.S. lettuce comes from a undivided vale in California , the Salinas .
Why? Because it’s one of the best places in the world to grow lettuce.
If you are a moolah plant , you will be very happy grow in the Salinas Valley most of the year ( in the winter , lettuce production switch to Arizona ) .
You might recollect , so what if most of the country ’s lettuce is produce in one place ? It crap great sense , except when you consider both the value of widely distributed agricultural production , and the monetary value of industrialized intellectual nourishment product .
The industrial product model , for example , incurs a number of costs that are socialized ( the environmental costs of monocropping and farsighted - chain transportation ; the social cost of relying on undocumented labourer ) , whereas the net income are privatized .
If all costs were taken into consideration, locally produced lettuce might well be cheaper.
However , in our organization that only pick out monetary costs , industrial yield is “ cheaper . ”
So we find ourselves in a situation where most state are pro - duce importers , while only a few states are huge garden truck exporters , led by California and Florida .
In the past few decade , however , even with minimal awareness of the environmental impacts of industrialized farming , consumers have find changes in their food .
Everyone knows that the term grocery store tomato refers to a cosmetically perfect, hard, flavorless tomato.
The tomato may be the poster kid for flavorless produce , but it has become apparent in many crops that efforts in training and growing were for the purposes of easier shipping , not good flavour .
National produce recollect for Listeria and other pathogen have only highlighted the fact that massive amount of green goods add up from single source .
Whatever the reason , whether repercussion against industrialised food , affinity for the advantagesof local food for thought , or both , the local food movement has begin to gain impulse .
The most obvious indication of this momentum is the number of farmers markets.
The USDA start keeping track in 1994 , when they count 1,755 .
Twenty years later , in 2014 , they counted 8,268 . That ’s almost a quintuple increase over two 10 . So clearly consumer are interested in buying topically acquire food for thought .
But as mentioned above , most local raiser can only bring forth for a circumscribed part of the year , while the industrial food system can extend anything anytime .
Many farmers market shoppers come out to get what is seasonally available, and then head over to the grocery store for everything else.
increase protected refinement growing is the most authoritative agency to maintain the momentum of the local garden truck motion . Though there ’s now a marketplace for local food , local growers take out the marketplace when their food is in season and lose it when it goes out .
One of the best way to grow local food sales is to develop the length of the season through protect culture .
Out - of - season industrial product is vulnerable to competition from local protect culture growers . Florida ’s winter field - grow tomato market place is collapse .
If you want proof of this , check out the winter love apple selection at your local grocery store , which used to be predominate by immature - harvest gas - ripen battlefield tomatoes . Now over 70 percent of wintertime tomato for fresh eating are develop in nursery .
And understandably so: Since most greenhouse tomatoes are harvested at least partially ripe, they deserve the reputation of being at least better quality than winter field tomatoes.
The trend toward nursery tomato plant is not surprising when , as one breeder told me , the goal of wintertime field tomato breeding is to bring on a tomato that “ could smash a windshield . ”
Protected refinement is the only way for many local raiser to compete with out - of - time of year production from industrial USDA .
Since not everyone is uncoerced to pay a exchange premium for local intellectual nourishment , even if it does savor better and is fresher , the challenge is how to produce local food out of season at a price that is competitive .
As a local food advocator , I know that people will always want to buy produce out of season .
I’d rather see the dollars for out-of-season production go to a local grower.
Now on to battle the sensing that local food is more expensive . At my farmers market , our Leontyne Price are frequently the same as or similar to those at local grocery store stores , and we ’ve used signage in our mart pedestal to direct this out to customer .
But the larger dynamic that require to be defeat is that billions of clam of farm subsidies go to commodity harvest — corn and soy in finicky — that are work into junk food for thought .
This arrange any eccentric of vegetables , local , constituent , or not , out of reach for many house budgets , and makes the worst type of junk food the most low-cost choice for the poorest people , who need to maximise the number of gram calorie they get out of each dollar mark .
terminate farming subsidy is a subject for another Holy Scripture , but I do believe that the encroachment of making junk food artificially flashy is that vegetables of all case seem more expensive .
I see an opportunity for local growers to take advantage of the fact that industrial food for thought has such high fare costs associated with it .
The lack of such costs needs to make up for the higher cost of production associated with most smaller operations.
Plus , our car - bon footprint would be smaller if local growers pocketed more of the Mary Leontyne Price of produce , instead of it paying for interstate transport .
Produce wholesalers do n’t like the current tenacious industrial supplying chain that much , either . It ’s flash and efficient , but it does n’t produce a high - quality product .
Many would favor to offer tasty , novel local produce , but middleman ’ motivation for a reliable provision has long been a barrier for seasonal , local agriculturist .
Greenhouse production is a way for local producers to finally remove that barrier, since production becomes more dependable without the vagaries of weather.
In an era of foodborne illness scares , wholesalers also apprize the fact that food from protect agriculture is bring forth in a controlled environs , which should be sporty and free of contamination .
Ultimately , local protected culture agriculturist can offer food that is higher- timber than anything industrial food has to propose .
Future Trends
The industrial food organization will increasingly favour local production . In North America , for exercise , a pro - longed drought in California is currently jeopardizing the most significant vegetable product realm in the land .
Not let enough water to conserve anterior production levels , as well as scarcity forcing prices up , both act an opportunity for local growers .
The gradual addition in the price of fossil fuel could also diminish industrial output . Cheap dodo fuels are the foundation garment of the industrial nutrient system of rules and its ability to ship intellectual nourishment anywhere in the world .
Though they may continue to be relatively trashy now , the inevitable addition in transportation costs will increase the cost of industrial food . In the recollective running game , this will favour local growers with short supply irons .
Improvements in energy efficiency and green technology mean that local greenhouse growers can grow out-of-season produce efficiently, closer to the consumers.
On the farms and greenhouses that I have visited , growers are investing in protect polish yield at a faster rate than they are investing in young field product .
This trend , coupled with the fact that the Natural Resources Conservation Service has funded over thirteen thousand hoophouses to date in all fifty states , stand for that there is a rapidly grow amount of protected - culture growing outer space on farm everywhere .
The rise in need for local food has create an opportunity that husbandman can meet through protect factory farm , which has an especially important part to play in the local food movement .
Even though year - daily round field farm is unsufferable in most of the state , people still involve to run through 365 days a year . So the pick are either to let local produce dwindle down to storage crop over the wintertime in most areas , or to start the time of year .
I know there are some dedicated locavores who prefer to subsist as much as possible on food that can be stored over the winter, much as our ancestors did.
But with people used to the wide variety of produce that ’s uncommitted year - round from the market store , not everyone is kick the bucket to go without fresh produce in the cold calendar month .
Now that farmers markets have restore them - selves in many communities , hold out the seasonality of the solid food available from local output is the next step for increasing the consumption of topically produce foods .
We have made swell advancement in increasing the accessibility of local foods through farmers market , CSAs , food for thought hubs , and local wholesaling . And with many foods , the season can be extended through infrigidation , freeze , or depot .
With the eight crops I focus on in this book , however , if no one is extending the time of year at the end of the local field - raise time of year , the dollars spent on local food will go back to industrial factory farm .
This is why raising the quality and quantity of season- extension crops is the next step in the revitalization of our local food system.
Not only do I put up local food systems because I am a local grower ; I am a local agriculturalist because I endorse the idea of a rich local food system . I think it would be great if more of the food we take in were bring forth topically .
For one affair , local food for thought systems are resilient . In a centralized food organization , if bad conditions impact an important yield area it can induce far-flung disruption . The disruption does n’t even have to be in the production area to have an effect .
kale prices are seldom higher in the East than when the Mississippi floods , preventing bridge travel and transport from the Salinas Valley . This play up both the extreme centralization of product and the importance of tape transport to the industrial nutrient system .
When lettuce production is distributed over the country, however—whether in field or protected culture—localized weather and climate disruptions don’t have as big an impact.
Local intellectual nourishment also have in mind fewer food statute mile . Some people may disagree and say it does n’t matter , that fogey fuel usage will amount in the flesh of greenhouse heating if not from the truck ship the food for thought .
But greenhouse heating system system are getting more efficient all the prison term , to the full stop where it ’s now possible to have an off - gridiron , carbon - neutral or fossil - fuel - free greenhouse .
Over time , the increase cost of fogy fuel will favor efficient greenhouse production over retentive - range transportation of produce . Every part of the industrial nutrient strand , from plant breeding to harvesting , is made to tolerate shipping green goods long distance .
If produce did n’t have to go as far , not as many corner would need to be reduce , result in better - taste , more nutritious food .
Recommended Reads
Winter Gardening Without het Greenhouses
9 thing to Consider When Building Your Own Greenhouse
The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook
Organic Vegetable Production Using Protected Culture
$ 34.95
Recent Articles
Farming Against Nature
When you ’re walking around the market shop looking at the veggie , it ’s probably laborious to reckon that a century ago there was twice the amount of choice .
Types of Tomatoes: Deciphering the Many Varieties
If you love tomato , you credibly already know just how many assortment of these summertime staples there are . But do you know what makes each one unique ?
Embracing Sustainable Food Production: Integrating Trees and Crops
Adding the long secret plan of trees to your organisation results in a deeper and more dependable , live and profound presence to your yearly vegetable production .
Foraging for Mushrooms: Gourmet Root Systems
For people who enjoy foraging for food in the wild , there are plenty of mushrooms to choose from — “ ten thousand mushroom-shaped cloud coinage to be count on the North American continent alone ” . But scrounge for mushrooms should never be thought of as a game of chance . You need to love all the clew when it come to identifying …
How to Create the Perfect Bee Hive: A Home Worth Buzzing About
For all the apiculturist and succeeding beekeepers out there , this one is for you ! Your journey to successful beekeeping begins with constructing a suited haven for honeybee , otherwise do it as the bee hive . The following is an excerpt from Raising Resilient Bees by Eric and Joy McEwen . It has been adapted for the vane . bee …
© 2025 Rizzoli International Publications Inc. All Rights Reserved .
Rizzoli International Publications300 Park Avenue South , quaternary FloorNew York , NY 10010United States
There are items in your basket which are ready to ship.
You ’ll necessitate to checkout before sum this pre - order item to your handbasket .
