Growing Year Round in Wisconsin!

WHAT?! One million pounds of food on just three acres?! Wow! Now that’s production… and it’s what one organization has discovered possible with a year round greenhouse… even in the long winters of Wisconsin.

Intimidated or Inspired?

Now if you immediately feel overwhelmed at the prospect of such a big operation, and you don’t ever plan to grow so big, you may still wish to read this and watch the videos. We only have a little cattle panel greenhouse at this point, and don’t plan to do aquaponics. However we always gain ideas for our own current and future greenhouses, by learning about what others are doing in their greenhouses, large and small.

Start Small, Dream Big, and Keep on Growing!

We’re so glad we’ve begun our year round greenhouse journey with just a small greenhouse. Our little cattle panel greenhouse is giving us lots of experience with what works and what doesn’t. We’re learning about and how to keep an eye out on temperature management, greenhouse pests, water supply, what plants do well growing through winter in the greenhouse and which ones don’t.

Our small greenhouse also gives us a chance to observe how much more we may be paying in electricity costs for when we have to run heaters. It also gives us a chance to research and plan for capturing more passive solar heat as well as alternative heating systems.

So if this huge operation seems irrelevant to your and your future plans, you may still enjoy it for ideas on possibilities for your goals. Meanwhile, if you want more info on what they’re doing and how, you’ll enjoy watching the videos below.

Best Winter Vegetables for an Unheated Year Round Greenhouse

Vegetables That Can Survive Freezing Temperatures in an Unheated Greenhouse – listed alphabetically

• Arugula
• Asparagus
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Celery
• Collards
• Endive
• Garlic
• Kale
• Leeks
• Mustard greens
• Onions
• Parsnips
• Peas
• Radicchio
• Radishes
• Rutabagas
• Spinach
• Swiss Chard
• Turnips

This list is corroborated by Milk Creek Gardens as good winter crops for unheated greenhouses in the frigid Northern Utah winters. Please let us know what you’d add (or remove) from this list based on your own experience of growing in an unheated greenhouse in a cold climate.

Find more on best vegetables to grow in winter here.

Growing Power – a Non-Profit Food Production Organization

If you haven’t yet heard of Growing Power, the non-profit food production organization, you will want to. The history, education and success of this program is inspiring and hopeful for cities—and families—around the world.

Now for those who are looking to take their land into growing for earning, as with many things in nature, one thing can produce so much more. One seed can produce many fruits… many vegetables, and one hydroponic farm can produce more than fish and vegetables.

Growth Leads to Growth

As any market gardener knows, once you start growing and selling a few items, it’s increasingly easier to succeed in growing vertically by adding multiple items. You can expand either through stacking vertical growth of more veggie produce, or, as an expanding platform of symbiotic and complementary products, such as vermiculture with worms and castings.

A micro farm can expand vertically into what is called value added products. Examples of farmers’ market ideas for a farmer growing blackberries, includes making and selling blackberry preserves, syrup, honey, dried blackberries and blackberry powder. They could further expand into cosmetics such as blackberry lip balm, creams and also herbal teas from the blackberry leaves and fruit.

Growing Power Organization – Grossing $900,000 per Year in Worm Castings!!!

Growing Power’s worms are an example of a successful byproduct of the farm. Their worms can produce about 100,000 pounds of castings in four months. At the time of the recording of the third video (which is hard to hear), the price for castings was $2-$4 per pound. So… let’s split the difference and say that would be $300,000 every four months from worm castings, or… $900,000 per year, gross, just in worm castings.

WOW! Now you could live on that, right?! Even after expenses and taxes, that’s probably a very decent living and it doesn’t even touch the revenue that could be generated from the food and fish… or the money saved in feeding your family.

Editor’s Note: Of course you’d need to check the market in your area for supply and demand plus price, and not rely on these informal reporting of numbers for your business plan. But… it does sound very promising with lots of potential!!

Videos of Growing Power’s Aquaponics System

We’re including two of the videos here because there are tidbits in each one that may not be in the others. For example, in this first video, Growing Power employee, Jordan Stone, explains a little bit more about how the system works than you may see in some of the others, plus the sound is much better.

Growing Power founder, Will Allen has sure made his 3 acres productive! 1 MILLION pounds of Food on 3 acres. 10,000 fish and 500 yards compost. Plus… worm castings!

In this next video, Will talks about how much they’re growing and how the non-profit,Growing Power is the largest producer of food in Milwaukee, by growing food year round. You’ll also see how they’ve taken 3,000 square feet of space and are able to grow 4,500 square feet of space by going vertical.

Impressive, right?! We hope this has given you some ideas of what’s possible for you on your land. Let us know if you’re already doing anything like this, or end up doing it. We love to hear your stories, so visit our Facebook page and comment.

Hats off to visionary found of Growing Power, Will Allen for this amazing success story!^[1]https://www.growingpower.org/^[2]https://www.facebook.com/growingpower/

Growing with a year round greenhouse is possible, even in cold climates. Here’s more on how to heat a small greenhouse, and on the cool geodesic dome greenhouse.