Having just devoured Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, excellent reading for those interested in dissecting the complexities of green, we were delighted when Jill tipped us off to these movable greenhouses. The idea is brilliant and simple.
Because it is so intensively cultivated, the soil in a fixed greenhouse tends to become poisonous to the very plants you are trying to grow. This leaves the gardener in a bind: grow everything in pots, or attempt to periodically sterilize the soil.
But what if you could just move the greenhouse to a fresh plot? Inspired by examples in Europe, Eliot Coleman devised an entire greenhouse that sits on rails and can be pushed to and fro over two beds, allowing the gardener to cycle beds and keep the soil fertile. It's also well designed, with either glass or lighter weight polycarbonate available...
Moveable Greenhouses
What can a gardener do with a movable greenhouse? The manufacturers suggest several uses:
• The house could be moved to cover strawberries or asparagus in early spring thus speeding up the first harvest by at least a month.
• It could advance a bed of spring bulbs or keep hardy annuals flowering through mid-December.
• You might move the greenhouse to protect globe artichokes over the winter or to cover fig trees in a climate where they would otherwise not survive.
Prices start at $9,500 for a standard 8' x 12' greenhouse and go up with size. The greenhouses are sold as a kit, so figure on extra for freight to your location, site preparation, assembly, and, if needed, permits.
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Good grief. Talk about overkill.
For less than 0.5% of that price you could build yourself a cold frame with PVC pipe and 3 mil plastic to cover your strawberries, asparagus, spring bulbs, and hardy annuals. For even half of that price you could buy a bolt of Reemay or other "floating row cover" that does the same thing by acting like a water-permeable blanket over your plants. Or you could go really nuts and spend 0.75% of that price and get a fancier-looking manufactured cold frame, or go totally Martha and buy yourself some froofy-looking cloches. For more intense indeavors, sizeable hobby greenhouses (say 6 x 8 feet) start at a few hundred dollars and go from there. Nearly $10K is just ridiculous.
I'm deeply skeptical of the claim that the soil beneath a greenhouse becomes "poisonous"--though I do agree there are good reasons to rotate crops or move a row cover/cold frame/hot house through the season or from year to year. Row covers and cloches are portable, and there are even lightweight greenhouse models that pop up, or are supported sort of like camping tents, that can be moved from place to place through the season.
Google "cold frame", "floating row cover", "pop-up greenhouse", or any other similar terms to see much more affordable options that do all of the above for much less dough.
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