When most of us are putting our gardens to bed, Eliot Coleman is seeding his crops to be grown throughout the winter in unheated greenhouses in Maine.

In September, when most of us are putting our gardens to bed, Eliot Coleman is seeding his lettuces, carrots, radishes and salad greens grow bountifully throughout the winter in his unheated greenhouses in Maine.

While the typical farmer sows and harvest hundreds of acres of grains and legumes from May to November, he cultivates 6 acres of land year-round in one of the country's coldest climates.

He was 26 and teaching in Colorado when he read a book that changed his life - "Living the Good Life", written by Helen and Scott Nearing.

The Nearings left urban New York for rural Maine, where they cleared their land, built a stone house and grew food organically, living mostly independent of the market economy.

Helen and Scott Nearing are the pioneers of the back-to-the-land "good life" movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life, based on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash.

The Good Life, a book by Helen and Scott Nearing, is fascinating, timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.

Eliot Coleman started organic gardening in 1965, following the Nearings' organic farming practices. It made no sense to him to spray plants with chemical fertilizers or herbicides that killed what nature created - and himself as well.

"The natural world is well-designed; we need to work with it," he said.

In 1968, he sought out the Nearings and purchased 60 acres from them. This land was everything that he suggests not to farm - steep, stony, heavily treed, and very acidic.

Gradually, he cleared acre after acre. His house had neither electricity nor a phone, but the root cellar stayed stocked and spring seedlings brought a new season of hope.

For 10 years, he grew and sold organic vegetables. For the next 15 years, he worked as an organic farmer at other organic farms, including one at a school where students farmed instead of played sports.

In the early 90's, he bought back his Harborside farm from his ex-wife and began farming it again as the Four Seasons Farm.

Eliot has over 30 years experience in all aspects of organic farming, including field vegetables, greenhouse vegetables, rotational grazing of cattle and sheep, and range poultry.

He is the author of The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener (A Gardener's Supply Book) (Chelsea Green, 1989, revised, expanded second edition, 1995), Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long (Chelsea Green, 1992, revised, expanded second edition, 1999) and the The winter-harvest manual: Farming the back side of the calendar : commercial greenhouse production of fresh vegetables in cold-winter climates without supplementary heat.

He has contributed chapters to three scientific books on organic agriculture and has written extensively on the subject since 1975.

He also wrote Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation

During his careers as a commercial market gardener, the director of agricultural research projects, and as a teacher and lecturer on organic gardening he has studied, practiced and perfected his craft.

He served for two years as the Executive Director of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements and was an advisor to the US Department of Agriculture during their landmark 1979-80 study, Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming.

He has conducted study tours of organic farms, market gardens, orchards, and vineyards in Europe and has successfully combined European ideas with his own to develop and popularize a complete system of tools and equipment for organic vegetable growers.

He shares that expertise through his lectures and writings, and has served as a tool consultant to a number of companies. He presently consults and designs tools for Johnny's Selected Seeds.

With Barbara, he was the host of the TV series, Gardening Naturally, on The Learning Channel. He and Barbara presently operate a commercial year-round market garden, in addition to horticultural research projects, at Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine.

An interview with Eliot Coleman:

Connett: You are best known for your hoop houses. How portable are your ideas and techniques to other parts of the country?

Coleman: We have a layer of plastic a foot above the soil inside the greenhouse. So we have a double layered system. Each layer of covering moves me 500 miles south. So when I enter the greenhouse, I am in New Jersey. And when I reach my hand under the inner layer, my hand is in Georgia. You guys are already where I am spending an awful lot of money getting to.

We also have noticed that growth slows way down for the period of winter when day length is less than 10 hours. For us, that is November 15 to February 7. For you guys it is December 21. Period. You have all the sun anyone could ever want. Georgia doesn't need to import one single bit of winter food.

Connett: So why hasn't your system caught on down here?

Coleman: It's a curious thing. When we came over here as settlers we didn't bring that tradition of greenhouses with us because it didn't exist in the way it does in Europe now until the early part of the 20th century. People came from lower socio-economic strata, so the tradition never got started here.

Connett: So really technology has allowed hoop house farming to catch on.

Coleman: The miracle is nothing more than that sheet of plastic. I have greenhouses with metal pipe ribs but there is a neat kid I know in northern Vermont who makes his own poles out of what he cuts in the woods. He is putting up huge greenhouses for about 30 cents a square foot. At that price you can almost not afford not to build it. And there are new ways of fastening the plastic now that would allow someone in the South to take the plastic off at the end of March. You just uncover this thing and re-cover with shade cloth if you want, and put plastic back in November and run through until March again.

Connett: It sounds too good to be true. What is missing here?

Coleman: From where you are, there is absolutely nothing missing. Up here in our minimally heated greenhouses, with the present price of propane, I probably won't get paid in January and February. I'll keep working and pay the workers and pay bills, but I won't get paid. We are fighting enough cold, given the systems that are easy to use, that it is difficult. We will eventually have to put in a wood (heating) system. But where you are, none of these wintergreens need more protection then just a hoop house.

"I tell people there is as much difference between my carrots and supermarket carrots as there is between a [Ford] Fairlane and a Mercedes."

Connett: Have you reached the limits at Four Season Farm? How much further can you push nature?

Coleman: Last year, in 2003, on an acre and a half, we sold a $100,000 of produce. I think we can do $150,000 if we ironed out all the things we do wrong.

Connett: What is your five-year plan for the farm?

Coleman: We have put some heat into some of our greenhouses because crops like baby turnips and radishes won't play out in our totally unheated system here where it can go down to 20 below. So we are continuing to experiment with ways to run unheated greenhouses and there is an endless amount of messing around there. But we have been working with a local engineer in creating equipment for this type of farming because there isn't any. We have a little lightweight rototiller you can use in greenhouses. It goes very shallowly and is powered by a cordless drill. We are making a new seeder that will allow you to plant rows together in the greenhouse, so you can get maximum use out of it.

Connett: So you are improving tools and refining practices?

Coleman: Yes. Most people think that biology is the tough thing in farming, especially because it’s organic farming. Basically, the biology is pretty easy. It’s the economics that is difficult. What I keep working on is trying to figure out ways to make the production system more efficient. Human beings, unfortunately, given the choice between a Motorola and a Sony, will choose the Sony. Given a choice between a Ford Fairlane and a Mercedes, they buy the Mercedes. But those same people are convinced that a carrot is a carrot is a carrot. And I tell people there is as much difference between my carrots and supermarket carrots as there is between a Fairlane and a Mercedes. But that concept has just never been able to penetrate people's minds.

Connett: How do you market in the winter -- is it different than the rest of the year?

Coleman: We run a system where we sell from October through June. We often jokingly refer to ourselves as the backwards farm. There are tons of outdoor field growers in the summer, so why add to that competition. We just steal the rest of the year. We could easily be 10 times bigger. People are just dying to have something fresh. They instinctively realize that the week-old stuff from California is exactly that—a week old.

Connett: Is there research to support those instincts?

Coleman: There is a group in Europe—Organic Food Quality and Health —and it has some pretty respectable research from European universities there. So the research is beginning to come out. A new study from Denmark, for example, is showing there are far higher levels of vitamin E in organic milk, purely because of the way the cows are fed.

We have our acre and a half of about 40 different vegetables, year round. And we use no pesticides, not so much because we are opposed to them but there is no reason to. We have nothing to use them against.

Connett: But hasn’t that taken a long time coming about?

Coleman: Not really. Sure there have been pests that were more gnarly then others, but solving the problem was based on figuring out what I was doing wrong. And I take that as my foundation for thinking. My God, if it is possible to do that with plants, it is equally possible to do that with people. And what I am doing with plants, I am making sure they don't get anything dumped on their soil that Mother Nature didn't create, because she has been running this system for millions of years. I'm convinced the same thing is true of our bodies.

"[Growing organic food] isn't a goal; it's a process. You have to figure out how to continue to get good."

Connett: You make the distinction between “shallow organic farming” and “deep organic farming.” Whole Foods, Horizon, and other large organic retailers would fall into the first category, yet haven’t they played a big role in educating the public about the benefits of organic and in increasing the market?

Coleman: My objection is they set the bar too low or fail to set a bar at all. It isn't a goal; it's a process. You have to figure out how to continue to get good. It's kind of like Regis DeBray’s revolution in the revolution. You have to keep stirring the pot, otherwise you get complacent and fat.

Connett: So what is your vision of agriculture in the 21st century?

Coleman: Visions rarely change things. I am amazed that organic has done as well as it has. What is going to change things – and there is a lot of agreement among geologists – is that we are at the peak of oil production. And demand is going up so fast that there will no longer be cheap oil. It is cheap oil that makes it possible to ship tomatoes all the way from Mexico to Maine. In 20 years, the small local farm is going to look better and better because the cost of transportation is going to be a lot bigger chunk of the price than it is now.

The current address for Eliot Coleman's farm is Four Seasons Farm RR Box 14, Harborside, ME 04642.

He believes all things are possible. Someone mistakenly told him that a vineyard would be impossible - that, he says, is next.