There is immediate disillusionment upon entering the half-acre organic greenhouse farm of David Miskell. Inside one stagnant greenhouse lies extensive rows of dead vegetables and assorted greens. In the other, dead vegetables lie under a tarp, as tags with names of the plants written on them scatter the ground at your feet. It’s warm, not quite musty, but humid as opposed to outside, where it is 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The radio plays soft music through the facility’s stereo system.

As a result of this winter’s harsh temperatures, Miskell, owner and operator of Miskell’s Premium Organics in Charlotte has lost approximately 50 to 70 percent of his crops.

Miskell began farming alongside his wife, Susan, in 1982 at Shelburne Farms where they specialized in wholesale organic specialty vegetables. According to Miskell, he hasn’t experienced anything quite like this winter.

“I started looking in mid-January and started seeing that things weren’t looking good, and so the beginning of February, I started re-planting a lot,” Miskell said.

His recent effort has been to replace the abundance of crops that have died.

“A week and a half ago I was replanting kale and that night it got to be negative ten degrees, and my replacement kale got killed and so yesterday I was replacing kale the third time,” he said.

Miskell believes it’s due to the cold.

“It might also be that we’ll have a few warm days, and then wham-o.” In late February, Miskell’s crops died, having yet to experience this.

“This is a drag,” Miskell said of the harsh winter.

Miskell, who supplies to City Market, Healthy Living, and the Intervale Food Hub, said that he has found himself at an all time low.

“This time of year, they want anything I have, and so I don’t have much,” Miskell said. Usually I’m not starting new plants until March, whereas this year, I’ve started new plants through the whole month of February.”

The failing of greenhouses is not strictly due to the cold, but to the unsustainability of increased costs, which has impacted Miskell immensely.

It cost Miskell nearly $3,000 worth of oil that he wouldn’t have used, as well as a $30,000 loss of products, which is not much for most farms in Vermont, Miskell explained. Even so, the loss has had an impact.

“That is a lot,” Miskell said.

The Charlotte resident is investigating in alternate technologies like solar-heated water and pellets or grass that would diminish the increased heating costs that added approximately $10,000 to $15,000 worth of fuel this year.

The majority of people don’t try to grow crops in the middle of the winter. But, according to Miskell, it is a method that has worked.

“I don’t know whether it will continue to work,” he added.

“Our food system is very fragile,” said Heather Lynch, sustainability coordinator and associate director of facilities at St. Michael’s. “With climate change becoming more prevalent now, it would be great for people to start focusing on the fact that we are supporting this industrial, conventional agriculture system that is screwing our planet and now our food is starting to suffer from that.”

Managing your greenhouse in cold temperatures dials down to two factors: heating or not heating, according to Mark Lubkowitz, associate professor of biology at St. Michael’s.

Lubkowitz, who grows food year-round in his gardens and four-season greenhouse at his Huntington residence, also faced much increased costs this winter when his greenhouse failied.

“If you heat your greenhouse, then your challenge is the cold, and you can spend a lot of money heating,” Lubkowitz said. “You’re playing a game with how much you want to put in versus how much you can get out.”

Lubkowitz’s own greenhouse does not have ample crops per pound to yield that much, meaning that he must be very judicious about what he plants.

“When you’re used to getting essentially free fresh vegetables out of your backyard, when I go to Healthy Living and look at the prices of what we grow, I can’t afford that,” said Lubkowitz. “It’s normally free.”

Greenhouses affect the healthy decisions we make, according to Lubkowitz.

“Even though it may not always be the most cost-efficient, long-term health-wise, it is a good bet,” Lubkowitz said.

Lynch, who’s currently a graduate student at Green Mountain College, aims to raise awareness to students about the food system, specifically where our food is coming from and what the cost of it is through the summer course she is teaching called Sustainable Food Systems on College Campuses, part of the accelerated summer program.

She noted that many people are unaware of where their food is coming from, how it is produced and what goes into it.

“Those that do depend on food from greenhouses more locally already understand what goes into it, and how the weather really plays a role,” said Lynch.

Lynch’s major goal is to provide more classes at St. Michael’s for students to understand the ways in which we are impacting the environment that then impacts the human population. Through this understanding, she is hoping to provide more education in the dining hall about what food we are getting, where it came from and how it is impacting the environment.

In the meantime, Miskell is remaining positive towards the future. He plans to start growing young plants in mid-January, and by doing so, he hopes that they will not winter over, which in turn reduces the labor, time, and effort, of maintaining the dying plants over the winter, according to Miskell.

“I’m gonna get it, but it’s taken longer,” Miskell said.