I planted beets in my hoop house in the early fall. They grew for about a month until it got cold, they they stopped growing but just kind of hung out waiting for the next few months for it to warm back up again. They have started growing pretty well again, and the leaves are bigger than any beets I’ve ever grown before. (I have lot’s of gardening failures!)
The interesting thing is that the leaves that overwintered are a dark purple color and the new leaves are a bright green. They are very interesting to look at.
The chard and kale did great in the hoop house–they might even survive fine out in the open–we’ve gone out and harvested a few leaves here and there as we need them and they just keep growing more.
The last thing I put in the ground last fall (outside the hoop house) was garlic. Once in Salt Lake City I attended a community garden workshop all about hoop houses and fall gardening, and one of the presenters was a garlic farmer. Just. Garlic. But the interesting thing about garlic is that you plant in the fall and cover with mulch or leaves and it just starts growing automatically when it’s the perfect time and temperature–that is my kind of gardening.
Each clove you plant will grow a whole new bulb.
I’ve heard people talk about using the greens or “scapes” as they call them, like chives to give a fresh flavor to food. Have you tried it? My real question is does cutting the scapes to cook with stunt or halt the growth of the garlic, or can you cut them a few times and still harvest a large bulb of garlic?
This is one thing I love about gardening. . . There’s always something new to learn.
Urban Pioneer Story 
How wonderful that you have nice things in the wintertime. we do that too. Have you ever read Elliott Coleman’s book? We have a hoop house too, and I plant in late September for the winter harvest here in Indiana. When the weather gets REALLY cold, then I put wire wickets over the beds and cover those with floating row cover. We eat Swiss chard, kale, green onions, mache and spicy greens all winter and we will enjoy chard from that bed all summer too, as I cut off the “bolting” parts. I am able to start our vegetable plants in there also, in the spring. In fact, any day now.
Wow–you had a floating row cover on the plants inside your hoop house? Luckily it doesn’t get quite that cold here. I haven’t read any of his books–Is he the 4 season harvest guy? I have heard some of his ideas though –that’s why we left our carrots in the ground through the fall as well.
Yes! That’s the one!
its my understanding that not cutting the scapes off when they come in makes for a smaller garlic bulb at harvest, and that was the case the one year i didn’t get to them cut, and the only time i tried to cook with them they remained very tough in the stir fry. mine are hard neck garlic though so that may make a difference. just watch for the curl in the stem to appear and you can give it a try in something. i’ve heard that they can be pickled as well and that is going to be my next try to see if they come out softer. i’ve used some to decorate the patio as well as i think a bunch of them in a vase or pitcher with the small ‘flower’ heads look very nice as well
Our beets have grown similarly this season in our hoop house. The colors of the leaves are quite dramatic and beautiful. Happy harvesting once they size up a bit 🙂
Great blog. I bounced over here from Frugally Sustainable. Garlic scapes aren’t exactly greens, the scape is the stem and premature flower head of the garlic plant. It is important to cut off the stem and green flower head before it actually develops into a flower because the plant will focus its energy into the production of the flower and seeds rather than the bulb. By not cutting off the scape, the garlic bulbs will be smaller. You can, however, allow the plants to go to seed (the seeds look almost like tiny garlic cloves) and then plant the seeds for your next year’s garlic crop. In this case, the garlic plant has reproduced sexually and you may grow a slightly different type of garlic than you started with. By growing garlic from divided-up bulbs (the common method), every plant is a clone and is identical to its “mother” and “siblings.” Hope this helps!
Just started reading your blog; I love it!
I got to try garlic scapes for the first time last year; I had a little in a stir fry, but a raw pesto was absolutely amazing. My friend gave me her scapes and also some of her garlic bulbs later in the season; the bulbs weren’t huge, but they were flavorful. I’m planning to try harvesting scapes from every other garlic plant this year, and see if it makes much of a difference.
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