Growing green in the face of a winter freeze

In the winter when snow covers the ground and temperatures drop below freezing, growing crops like leafy greens and lemons may seem impossible.

But like many others, farmers at Round the Bend Farm have devised a work around. Scattered across the farm’s properties are four greenhouses that grow a limited variety of crops to keep the farm partially operational until the growing season picks up in the spring.

In one greenhouse, lemon trees grow under tarps that drape over their limbs and fruits. In others, fig trees, kale and spinach grow.

“Greens this time of year is pretty much all that will grow, just because of our climate,” said Madigan Kay, the Manifest Love farmer and distribution manager at Round the Bend Farm.

She added, “Most everything else needs more heat than what it would be getting.”

Growing tomatoes this time of year, for example, is off the table as Round the Bend Farm doesn’t use heated greenhouses.

“It’s always just a question of like, ‘Okay, what can survive?’ It kind of gets the extreme conditions, in some ways,” Kay said.

The majority of crops are annual crops with other plants like fig trees mixed in.

“The figs we planted in there just because they prefer sort of like a Mediterranean climate, so they thrive in there, but not everything would,” Kay said.

Kay noted that crops grow slower in the winter, which limits how often they can be harvested. In the summer, crops like spinach can be harvested every week, but the colder temperatures can take another two weeks before crops are ready for harvest.

Currently, the majority of crops being grown go toward the farm’s Manifest Love program, meals at winter open farm days and for providing farm fresh food to staff members.

Manifest Love, a food program that provides farmfresh products to people in need, extended its program into the winter for the first time this year, in part due to the fact that Round the Bend Farm expanded growing crops into the winter.

Round the Bend Farm also uses its greenhouses to prepare for the growing season before the winter ends, planting seeds in starter cups and regulating greenhouse conditions to ensure they grow healthily.

Thanks to the greenhouses, winter storms and the biting cold don’t directly interfere with growth; however, they can pose challenges with accessing areas of the farm.

“Monday, [Jan. 25],  everybody was pretty much all hands on deck just shoveling, getting back to the different areas that you need to access,” Kay said.