People often ask us how we manage to get through the cold winter days, when our philosophy is to feature local produce. It takes a good deal of planning, a thorough knowledge of how our farming seasons work, and a good deal of flexibility in how we plan our menus. Because so many people ask us about how we manage this, here we offer a brief glimpse of how our team makes this possible.

At left is shown one of the main winter structures, a high tunnel or hoop house. At right is shown some fall produce, broccoli and snap peas, here shown growing in late November (no kidding!). On cold nights, we cover it with agriculture fabric (row cover).

For much of what we serve, the cycle starts with seeds and not with a call to the food distributor. It's convenient to portray it as starting seedlings in early spring, transplanting them outside when the weather warms, and harvesting them through the summer months. The reality is that seeds get planted nearly every week, sometimes in the greenhouse, sometimes in the kitchen, and sometimes directly in the ground. We have to remember that one seedling planted in February might yield a tomato, harvested in July, dehydrated and stored, rehydrated and served on a pizza the following February, on a day when the seedlings for the following cycle are already potted.

At left are, most prominently, broccoli and cauliflower seedlings. Below, L to R, broccoli, cutting celery, tomatoes and okra, and fennel peeking out the greenhouse window on a snowy day.

Hoop Houses During the Winter

Part of our thinking is to embrace each season with a celebration of what it best has to offer. For winter, the abundant greens are what we have as the freshest option, and they figure prominently on our menu. There are an amazing variety of greens that actually prefer the cold growing season, and flourish much better than during the sweltering summer heat. During the winter of 2011-2012 we are growing a variety of greens including various lettuces, three types of kale, collards, chard, mizuna, yukina savoy, spinach, arugula, herbs, carrots and celery. With a little bit of passive help from hoop houses (unheated with plastic covering) these plants thrive well into the late spring, providing the freshest local produce possible here or anywhere. These pictures show the hoop houses, one devoted to salad greens, and the other to cooked greens. Clockwise, starting from right: Matt holds a basket of lettuce mix; the cooked greens hoop house can be seen in the distance, below is shown a nice stand of yukina savoy, the lettuce on a sunny day with the hoop house side rolled up, Steven helping to pick chard and three varieties of kale (Tuscan black, Siberian and red Russian), our big hoophouse in the snow, our main stands of lettuce mix . In the background behind Steven, new radish and spinach plants can be seen.

Onions:   For a lot of our basic produce, we have to start thinking about our needs well in advance. For many produce items, it's an annual cycle of thinking, not a week-by-week ordering process. At The Harvest Table, onions are one of those little-appreciated but essential components of a seasonal, local and sustainable system, and clearly illustrate this annual cycle. Shown here, starting at above left, are seedlings grown in mass and repotted into individual cells, and two pictures of the more than 3000 onions we grew in our field during summer of 2011. Below are shown a tiny spider visitor to one of our onions, pulled onions drying in the field in July, and two pictures of onions on a fabricated drying rack, waiting for storage.