The Best of Both Worlds: Growing Outdoors and Under Cover
April 14, 2025 According to American Vegetable Grower’s 2024 State of the Industry Survey, 87% of outdoor growers use protected cropping systems to extend their growing season. Bob Jones, co-owner and CEO of The Chef’s Garden in Huron, Ohio, has been one of them for the past 40 years. Growing under cover in greenhouses and high tunnels, he says, has allowed him to course correct and streamline operations.
“We can learn much quicker in a greenhouse setting because the [growing] terms are quicker,” he explains. “You can’t duplicate everything you learned inside outside, but you can take some of the major lessons learn and apply them both indoors and outdoors.”
Growing under high tunnels and in greenhouses has allowed The Chef’s Garden to extend its growing season.
Extending His Growing Season
Ninety percent of Jones’ customers are five-star restaurants around the world, and their chefs determine the crops he grows, which range from tomatoes and leafy greens to cucumbers and peppers, and when he grows them.
“We’re really in the restaurant business but we happen to grow produce,” Jones says. “And if you follow the restaurant cycle as far as their seasonality, they’re just different.” Restaurants, he says, are busiest from early winter until spring. “So, if you’re going to be in the restaurant world, you have to have product when they need it – or else you’re irrelevant.”
When he first started growing in greenhouses in 1990, Jones used them only to grow transplant plants for outdoor production. Over time, he started planting and harvesting in-season produce in the greenhouse, as well.
“We really wanted to increase the percentage we have of each of our crops,” he says. “You want people to understand seasonality, eat local, and eat fresh as much of the year as they possibly can.”
By extending his growing season, Jones can deter customers from buying non-local produce that lacks flavor and nutritional density, while also reducing food miles.
Escaping the Banking Loop
For outdoor growers in the U.S. who are “really only two bad years away from going out of business,” as Jones puts it, there’s another benefit to adding protected cropping to extend the growing season.
He explains: If an outdoor grower goes to the bank in December 2025 to borrow funds for the 2026 growing season, they will often use that capital to pay off some of 2025’s expenses. This puts them in a shortfall position – they can either repeat the cycle if they have a good year, or they can have another season that falls short of expectations. Unfortunately, if a farmer comes up short two years in a row, Jones says, the bank will be less likely to loan them money.
By growing 365 days a year, Jones is able to break the banking cycle. “CEA gives us the opportunity to be profitable by having a year-round supply,” he says. “Getting away from this vicious cycle is probably one of the biggest blessings we’ve gotten.”