Title:
How a Hoop House Can Extend the Growing Season
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Today we discuss the greenhouse effect.
Farmers and gardeners have long used greenhouses to
extend the growing season in cold weather. Now, hoop
houses are gaining popularity. Hoop houses are
sometimes called temporary greenhouses or passive
solar greenhouses.
A hoop house is basically a metal frame covered with
plastic or other all-weather material. A common
design looks like a high tunnel. Unlike a
greenhouse, which uses a heating system, a hoop
house is heated by the warmth of the sun.
Now, the United States Department of Agriculture has
announced a program to help farmers who want to
build hoop houses.
The department, through its Cooperative State
Research, Education and Extension Service, has been
supporting a project in Michigan. That state has a
short growing season.
As part of the research project, nine farmers were
given materials and trained how to build and use a
hoop house. The results showed that well-managed
hoop houses can grow high-quality crops.
However, crops are not the only things that grow
well. The research found that weeds grow faster in a
hoop house. Weeding, seeding and watering requires
at least as much work as crops grown in the open
air. The researchers also advise growers to add
compost material to the soil in hoop houses to build
nutrients.
Eliot Coleman is an organic farmer and a writer in
Maine who has helped popularize the idea of
four-season farming. His ideas about hoop houses
sounded good to John Biernbaum in the Horticulture
Department at Michigan State University.
Professor Biernbaum tried hoop houses on the Student
Organic Farm at Michigan State and had success.
Project director David Conner says it was a "test
drive" for the research on private farms.
The agricultural economist points to the demand for
locally grown crops. "People are hungry for good,
fresh vegetables," he says.
Hoop houses for winter growing can even be found at
the White House, where First Lady Michelle Obama has
a vegetable garden.
The houses are small because of limited space on the
South Lawn.
A hoop house specialist at Michigan State
University, Adam Montri, has videos on YouTube
explaining how to build one. You can go to
voaspecialenglish.com and find a link to his videos
and also a link to our videos on YouTube.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
