November brings an end to almost everything growing outside in the garden, and spring seems forever away. But if you also grow in a hoophouse, spring can be just around the corner. Plant over-wintering spinach now and get a harvest in February of what will likely be the best-tasting spinach you’ve ever grown.

Spinach is probably the most cold-hardy crop you can grow—it will survive even outside the hoophouse, under row cover laid flat on the ground (see more below). Inside the house, it will grow slowly through the next couple months, and then really begin to take off as the days lengthen in early February. What is a tiny pair of first leaves at the start of the month will grow to harvestable size by the end of it.

While spring planting of cover crops is not an uncommon practice on organic farms and gardens, many farmers and market gardeners are experimenting with extending cover crop overlaps with cash crops through the creative use of easy-to-manage species (field peas, buckwheat and oats, all of which can be ordered through the annual NOFA Bulk Order) and leaving them in the ground until just prior to bed planting, or even allowing them to share bed space with cash crops or new perennial plantings.

Emerging research on soil microbiology and soil carbon sequestration shows that the number of days/year that soil has living roots in the ground with photosynthesis happening (i.e. “days in living cover”), the density of living plant roots, and the diversity of species of plants present are all contributing factors in increasing soil health and building soil organic matter / soil organic carbon.

These insights from the scientific community and healthy soils movement have spurred growers to start experimenting with ways to increase living root density and species diversity on as many beds and fields as possible.