The Great Veiling — Part 1

Extending our Season, Extending our Learning

Sunday November 23rd we took a major step forward in our overwintering trials at the Grow More Good Garden!

Thanks to a partnership with One Stone High School and the Building Boise Soil cohort of the Youth Climate Action program through the City of Boise, we now have a hoop house — a significant upgrade in our evolving practice of season extension.

Manual check in! Pollinator habitat relocated gently to the back fence.

Over the past several years we’ve been experimenting with overwintering using row cover only. While the results have been mixed at times, they’ve also been surprisingly successful — especially for cabbage, kale, leeks, radishes, turnips, spinach, lettuces, mustards, and hardy herbs. But we’ve also learned where single-layer protection struggles:

Heavy snow collapses the cover if no one is there to shake it off — sometimes within hours.
The fabric holds heat well but tears easily at clip points and along edges.
Once snow crusts at the edges, checking on moisture, weed pressure, or pests becomes nearly impossible.

But these trial seasons helped build something more important than just plants — they helped build shared knowledge. We’ve been hearing success stories from home gardeners, nearby community gardens, and small farms in our region who have been using the Eliot Coleman “double layer” method: greenhouse plastic outside, lightweight row cover inside.

It turns out — the second layer (the inner row cover) doesn’t just add warmth. It creates a more stable thermal environment. Broccoli can survive subzero nights. Spinach keeps growing. Beds can stay alive, workable, and ready for spring days or early starts.

So this winter, we're building on those local successes and trying it here.

With the added greenhouse plastic, we’ll now be able to check on the crops, tend to moisture, tuck in new starts, monitor pests, and even stage seedlings early next season. When the most delicate crops need extra protection, we’ll add the inner row cover — creating that layered thermal pocket that so many have found success with.

Gardeners and our helping family and friends were all thrilled to see this hoop house looking out at us with a sense of protection and possibility!

A heartfelt thank you to Shawna, Greg, Megan, Dawn, Kevin, Steve, and Jordon for bringing tools, hands, and good humor — and helping bring this next layer of learning into view.

Here’s to tending together, even in winter.