Hoophouse Tour

In our May gathering, one of the areas we walked through on our tour was the hoophouse. 

When we look at growing crops through the lens of healthy ecosystems, it requires that we think of all the elements involved and what they want and need to be healthy.

Some of the things I touched on during the tour, is how we allow for little “wild” areas within the hoophouse where snakes can hide, to keep the rodents under control, and “weeds” can grow which give habitat for various insects. Having a good balance of insects means that predatory insects will help keep other insects in check that might damage our crops. This is the concept of hedgerows on a farm in general.

And speaking of weeds, we are also mindful regarding which ones we pull out because some of them are as much of a crop as those we are planting. For example, a couple in these photos are milkweed and chickweed. There are several parts of milkweed which are edible – the shoots, the flower buds, and the young pods. (They do however need to be boiled three times before eating them as they can be toxic otherwise.) Chickweed is a nutritious green that can be eaten on sandwiches or salads in the same way as you would use various kinds of sprouts. 

We are likewise very careful to keep the soil covered in order to not kill off the life within it. This is one of the most important concepts in creating healthy soil and thereby healthy plants. Microbial life within the soil can die within minutes of being uncovered, so we immediately cover an area with straw or burlap after weeding it until the crops are big enough to cover it themselves. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little tour, and I’ve captioned the photos so you can get more of a sense of it. I’ll also be posting some videos about it that Doug Pierce took during our gathering. Thank you, Doug!

Blessings from the Sanctuary,

Jean