Climate Change

Hoop House 2018

When I first moved to Black Lake it was a zone 3 and had only about a 90 day growing season. I wanted at least 120 days so I could grow lettuce. At that time the local market only sold Iceberg Lettuce. I do not call it lettuce. But it seems the Moreno Valley was famous for it at one time. Some old timers even claim it developed, raised, and popularized it.

And so began my experiment on how to stretch my growing season. The use of pvc for hoops to support 6 mil plastic over raised beds promised to give me ten days on either side of summer. In its last season 2021 I planted in the beginning of May and continued to harvest through September.  Essentially I had lengthened my gardening season to 150 days. But not without trauma. As in late heavy spring snows which required going out and pushing the snow off the plastic every hour all night long.


When the snows begin the plastic came off


This year we had the snow squall in December. It overturned the garden shed. And then the violent spring winds which gave us the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fires brought the hoop house to the end of days.


The End of the Hoop House 2022

Friends suggest rebuilding and even offered help. Others recommended spending a small fortune on an industrial model. When I should be making some decision for the garden the fire raged and we were evacuated to Eagle Nest. Friends even suggested moving to the fishing village because it had a longer growing season. With nothing else to do I researched. Eagle Nest is actually a zone 3. And Black Lake had morphed into a zone 5A. I had a 120 day growing season without a hoop house. And the market now sold organic greens I liked to eat.

After my two weeks in exile I came back and out of force of habit or a need to find my heart I planted seeds. I squeezed Bibb, Romaine and Bloomsdale Spinach around kale, and broccoli into a 4 x 4 raised bed. I shocked myself at how much I can grow in how small a space. I have eaten a salad almost every day from my little fire garden. Yesterday I harvested potatoes out of one of the small beds in the hoop enclosure. The chicken wire base keeps the dogs out. And the door I constructed stands a a memorial.

I will still garden but it does not have to be as difficult as it once was. The fire proved that. I planted sunflowers twice and they are now just beginning to bloom. And I found another seed company to order from as Amazon and the USPS are not working well together with the new Postmaster. I have more or less divorced myself from Angel Fire and Eagle Net. But not gardening is not an option. I need a full day or more with my garden journal to develop a game plan for next summer. 

Meanwhile Baker Creek Seed Company has enticed me with a mini romane among other things. And so many vegetables are as beautiful as flowers so why be a segregationist. 


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