Ever since building the Polytunnel, I have been seeking to improve ways of extending the growing season for vegetables. When I stumbled upon an serialization of the book French Gardening by Thomas Smith in Small Farmer’s Journal I thought I had struck gold. The book, originally written in 1909, divulges the intensive gardening secrets of Paris market gardeners. The text and methods captivated me. The pictures of glass bell cloches, their carriers, woven reed mats for temperature control, and glass cold frames got me dreaming of how I might be able to have vegetables earlier in the season and harvest later into the winter.

The trouble, for me, was translating fascinating gardening history which relied on seemingly long forgotten intensive methods, and intensive labor requirements to a coastal, island, Pacific Northwest garden and polytunnel, where horse manure–the fuel which drove the Parisian gardens–is fairly scarce. But blindly I pressed on.

I realize now, I need not have tried to re-invent the wheel. Many times Eliot Coleman’s book, Four-Season Harvest, was recommended to me by many people. I put it on my wishlist. “Some day”, I thought. . . . Indeed, I almost missed the point that Coleman had instigated the republishing of French Gardening, in The Small Farmer’s Journal. It wasn’t until I was reading his latest book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, that I made the connections.

This new book, subtitled “Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses”, expands on the older, classic, Four-Seasons Harvest and updates its techniques with new information recently gained. Full of fantastic color photographs depicting the greenhouses, tools, crops and techniques, The Winter Harvest Handbook contains a wealth of information on indoor and outdoor production of vegetables. The book itself is aimed at the professional market gardener who will benefit from the year-round intensive crop rotation advise, but the language and techniques presented make this book a must read for anyone serious about growing organic vegetables or self-sufficiency.

The heart of Coleman’s concept is the unheated greenhouse, or polytunnel. By using it not only in the summer but in the winter you can maximize your investment and growing space. If he can achieve growing winter salad greens in the tough winter climate of Maine, anyone in other cold or cool climates should be able to replicate the success he has on his Four Season Farm.

Not only is this book an explanation of intensive market garden techniques and winter growing methods, but it is an organic growing primer and  history lesson. I was excited to find a whole chapter–far too short by half–on the practices of French Market Gardeners and about how Eliot Coleman himself learned from their methods. But even more exciting, for me, are the chapters on movable greenhouses. These are portable, rolling or dragable, greenhouses which can be moved around the garden to help extend the growing season. What a concept! Not only does this expand the seasonality of a garden, but it helps break pest buildup, keeps crops rotating and provides increased productivity. The only drawback to this part of the book, I found, was that it was too short, and not technical enough. Some other parts of the book–like the chapters on pests and tools–similarly lacked enough technical matter for me, but then I wanted to absorb everything in the book as much as possible. Someone else might find too much technical detail in the book.

Above all, what impressed me the most about the tone of this book is Eliot Coleman’s willingness to share his ideas, what you might call Open Source Gardening. Such access to the mind and spirit of a 40 year Organic Farming veteran is a blessing. The free flowing tone and open sharing in the book make it a great starting point to expand the conversation about how we can have an Organic, local, seasonal food system and still feed a growing number of people. The Winter Harvest Handbook is like a personal letter to each one of us, who grow vegetables, to take up the challenge, improve our soil and methods, grow organically and intensively and feed our communities.

I have been growing vegetables since I was a child. I have studied and observed the methods of successful market gardeners and improved my own growing practices. After reading The Winter Harvest Handbook I am re-energized for a new growing season–and not just the summer, but the full year of seasons–to get out into the garden and explore The Winter Harvest Handbook’s concepts and apply them to feeding my family and my neighbors. If you, too, love working with the soil and growing food, you will want to read this book and catch its infectious enthusiasm for producing top drawer vegetables through all the seasons.

The Winter Harvest Handbook , ISBN: 9781603580816, is published by Chelsea Green Publishing

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