Photos from the Quick Hoops trial

Quick Hoops Trial

Peas! Here’s a crop that you wouldn’t think you could grow in this system, but here they are. They were direct-seeded and the seeds remained dormant until spring.

Yum: This lettuce is ready to eat.

A couple things to note: Very little browning of the dormant leaves, like we saw with the Arugula; and most importantly, almost all of the varieties did well! Pretty cool.

Voila! Fresh greens in April thanks to Quick Hoops.

An artichoke peeks up through the ground after overwintering successfully under straw and a low tunnel.

Plenty of Arugula and plenty of weeds that need to be dealt with.

From L to R: Flashy Trout Back, Encore Lettuce Mix, and Spectrum Greens Mix. All direct-seeded in November. An example of a crop that was seeded after it was too cold to germinate and the seeds remained dormant until spring.

Flashy Trout Back lettuce: It's one of our prettiest lettuces. Described in our catalog as festive confetti in a salad bowl.

We held our first ‘Crop Walk’ of the year. Crop Walk is a weekly gathering of Johnny's Selected Seeds customer service reps, marketing, purchasing, operations people, and anyone else in the company who has an interest at our trial farm in Albion.

It is a time for Product Management to show off the trials and new products they are working on and also to educate on field prep techniques and pest and disease controls. This week, we featured our Quick Hoops Trial, which was a collaborative effort among product management.

Over the course of the winter, we have gained some valuable insight into the fine tuning of equipment and techniques needed to make season extension and overwintering possible in these rigid low tunnels. We also have obtained some very good data as to which varieties will work best in this application.

Learn more about Johnny's Selected Seeds Quick Hoops products and season extension, including the federal government's high tunnel pilot program.