Looking Back at Eden's Start

There was going to be some assembly required

There was a question regarding EQIP funding for high tunnels that came to my attention and I suddenly found myself taking a trip down memory lane.  You see, our first high tunnel, aptly named "Eden" was built in 2010 when the program to allow EQIP funding to help with their construction started.

The Genuine Faux Farm was among the first in the state to apply for and receive funding towards a new high tunnel and I believe ours was the first to be successfully constructed in our county.  It was new territory for us.  It was new territory for the folks in the NRCS office.  And it was newish territory for most small-scale vegetable growers in Iowa.  It was new enough that Practical Farmers of Iowa used our high tunnel build to create a two-day high tunnel build field day in July of 2010.

 

Yes, it does seem odd to see a ladder in the middle when everything else is on the ground.

On the positive side, we got lots of help.  Because it was a sponsored event, we were able to receive support from the designers and fabricators of the high tunnel, Four Seasons Tools, and guidance from Adam Montri of Michigan State University.

On the other hand, the whole thing was almost more of a whirlwind than we could handle.  Early July is already a busy time in the best of years, but 2010 had not been a good year for us up to that point.  There was rain.  And more rain.  And even more rain.  

We had so much rain that most of our field crops were on their way to ending their lives prematurely.  And we were on the verge of calling the Genuine Faux Farm a failed experiment.  And now we were going to host a whole bunch of people at a farm where the moral was low and our confidence was lower.

And, looking back on it, I don't regret having done the field day or the building project at all.

In a very real way, this field day and building project saved the Genuine Faux Farm from extinction that year.  It was because we had agreed to do this project and we felt a responsibility for seeing it through that we fought through to get to the point where many willing hands helped put the hoop building together.

Yes, it's true that Tammy and I spent more time running around finding tools or answering questions for media than we did learning how to build our own high tunnel.  It's also true that we were more involved in all the rest of the logistics than we were wielding impact drivers or shovels.  And, we were a good bit more than exhausted at the end of each day.

And that's coming from two people who knew what it meant to be truly exhausted at the end of a day.

As I review some of the photos from those two days now, I fully recognize the place that was the Genuine Faux Farm in 2010.  And, I can barely recognize the place that is the Genuine Faux Farm in 2023.  It really hasn't been all that long and it has been a lifetime ago.

Even the photo above has numerous reminders that things were different then.  The giant Silver Maple that had been allowed to grow out of the foundation of the garage was a big beautiful tree then.  We had managed to frame out the front of the old garage, but we had yet to work on the nearby Truck Barn (as we call it).  The granary still needed a new roof in 2010 and the cupola (if I have the right term) was still intact on that roof.  

We were still using cold frames to start plants by the Truck Barn and Grover the blue truck was still plugging along helping us do our farm deliveries.

One thing that hasn't changed is the fact that Tammy and I are still a team and we are the most important elements of what has made, and will continue to make, the Genuine Faux Farm what it was and is.  Certainly, some of our dreams from 2010 have not survived to the present day.  Many of those visions have been changed either because the reality of our lives forced changes or we found there was a way that fit our realities better.

But, the best thing is to look at these images and realize that we have shown ourselves that we are resilient and we are capable.  We are not as timid as we sometimes think we are, nor are we as inconsistent or uncertain as we worry we have been.

Sure.  Others might have been or might be more aggressive, more adventuresome, more profitable or more whatever it is measure you want to pick.  But many, many others have also been less so.  Once again, using whatever measure you want.  Besides, this was never a competition with anyone other than ourselves.  We've always been seeking to be our best selves rather than seeking to best someone else.

In short, we've done alright.  We've fought through some tough stuff and done some things to be proud of.  And we've done it with integrity and a good heart.

There isn't much more I could have asked of us.  Well done us.  Even if I do say so myself.

Stepping Back to See Better

I was curious.  If I took a look at some of the digital pictures I have in the folder labeled OctNov2013, what would I find there?  This is not an entirely facetious question because there really is no telling what sorts of images would be in any particular folder on my computer.

Of course, there are patterns.  Spring months feature a lot of young plants in trays.  September is likely to have many images of the harvest.  But, from year to year, I have not gone about collecting images with any particular plan.  Sometimes, I try to capture images of fields as they progress.  Other times, I try to discover new ways of looking at things.

And, during some of the most trying months, I find very few photos.  And thus those trying times are often allowed to fade a bit more easily with time.

This time, I noticed a few photos that documented the project of moving Eden, our smaller high tunnel from one position to the other.  Here we are, earlier in the day, with Eden in its Eastern position.  Our two lawn tractors (Biter and Beater) were out to help.  Our tractor, Durnik, can be seen in the background.  There is no Rosie (the big red tractor).  The trees near the Harvestore are much smaller.  There is no perennial planting that is now located just to the left of the lawn tractor in the foreground.

In short - things look, and feel, different in this picture than they do in the present day.

I discovered this image of the old barn in that folder as well.  I had forgotten that a wind storm had flipped the roof off and in front of the frame that September.  And all of the trees and brush that has sprung up around the old barn in the past ten years have barely made an appearance in 2013.

Now, it's not that I am completely enamored with the way things are today on the farm.  There are numerous things about both of these pictures that I wish we could have addressed and gotten to differently than we did.  But, I am okay with the increase of habitat - intentional or not - that we have had at the Genuine Faux Farm over the past ten years.

These 2013 images feel barren - and it isn't just because they were taken after the Fall leaves had fled the branches they once held on to.

Again, there are some things I really would like to "clean up" at our farm that have become "wild."  And there are wild places I would like to be a different kind of "wild."  But overall?  I still think we've been going in the right direction.  It's not perfect - but if stepping back to 2013 so I can see 2023 better leads me to the conclusion that we've done ok.   I am good with that.

Thanks for reading today!  I hope you have a fine remainder and that you have a chance to step back and get a welcome perspective.

Compost is Gold

One of the adjustments we have made over the past few years at the Genuine Faux Farm has been the management of our high tunnels, Eden and Valhalla.  While I say "adjustments" I actually mean "adaptations to reality of now."  When you go three years running where one or both of the farmers is down during the time of year when planting and high tunnel moving is supposed to happen, you adapt to the reality of what is....  even if you do it kicking and screaming.

For those who do not realize it, our two high tunnels are built so that they can move back and forth between two growing locations.   And, if you're not entirely sure what I mean by a high tunnel, you're looking at a photo of the inside of one of these hoop buildings.  We grow in the soil that is covered by the building.  If you want to see what some of that looks like, here's a post from 2017.

In any event, we found ourselves planting in our high tunnels in the same location that they were in last year.  In Eden's case, it hasn't been moved during any of the three seasons I just mentioned.  We had some help moving Valhalla a couple of seasons ago.

And now for the good news and adaptation.  We had, at our disposal a nice finished pile of compost that we could use to help rejuvenate some of the soil inside the buildings.  In the picture above, you can see that Rosie (the tractor) has a nice full bucket from that pile.  The bright sun fooled the camera a bit and it didn't pick up the deep, rich and dark color of this compost.

Both Tammy and I liked the feel and the smell of the black gold we pulled out.  Anyone who has worked with composting can tell you that a person learns the texture and scent indicators of quality compost.  And, other than a few things, like some baling twine and bigger sticks, this was good stuff!

We took the time to dig a planting whole for each pepper plant in Eden and filled them with the compost.  Then we put in the plants and covered with the soil removed from the hole.  It's a much longer process of planting, but for what we are doing now this was the best answer.

Eden now has had 120 Quadrato asti Giallo peppers planted for over a week now and they are looking very good.  These peppers are being grown out to harvest the seed for Seed Savers Exchange and I think we're on track for some excellent production.  The next steps are to finish caging the plants and to trim off the early fruit set to encourage them to put on a bit more growth first.

Quadrato asti Giallo is a pepper we have grown since 2008 (maybe earlier) and it was even in our top veggie variety list for 2018.  The good thing about having a history with an heirloom variety is that we are able to select plants that will help maintain a strong and healthy strain.  When we transplanted these peppers from seed trays to pots, we removed twenty plants that had germinated but were weak or showed some other issue we wouldn't want to propagate.  Another two dozen didn't get put in the high tunnel for similar reasons.  

Now we've got a very good looking mini-forest of peppers in Eden - all of them feasting on quality compost.  Keep checking back with the blog and we'll keep you updated on their progress.

Eden and Valhalla

People who have read the blog, gotten our farm emails, or have conversed with us may recognize that Eden and Valhalla are the names we have given each of our high tunnels at the farm.  I recognize that I don't always clarify what I am referring to anymore when I say "Eden" or "Valhalla" so I apologize if I left you sitting there feeling confused once or twice in the past.  I can't say it won't happen again...  But, I'll try to remember that not everyone lives in my world.

I recently received a great question regarding high tunnels that came in response to the recent move (two days ago) of Valhalla from its East position to its West position: "So the point of the high tunnel is to get crops started earlier than without one? And you move it to another section to repeat that process?"

The question was a great reminder to me that the whole reason for a high tunnel is not entirely transparent to the rest of the world.  In fact, I sometimes wonder if many who put up a high tunnel have a good reason as well!

A Brief GFF History

We put Eden up in 2010 (if you want to see some of the pictures you can go here and here).  After a little experience, the results were actually pretty encouraging.  In fact, this is where we learned that our snack tomatoes did exceptionally well under cover in Eden.  Our production in this building has consistently been good, with only a few exceptions.  Eden has been a 'happy place' on our farm for over a decade.

Valhalla was added to the farm in 2015.  The first year of production in that building was a bit rougher because of the conditions of the soil when we built it.  When you drive and pack down soil when it's wet, you can have difficulty working it and growing things later in the year.

Both buildings are two position, mobile, high tunnels.  The normal plan is to move each building once a year so we grow in each position for 12 months and we provide the ground opportunity to recover and avail itself of nature's filters when the building is off of a section. 

Eden is the "smaller building" at 30' by 72' in size.  Valhalla is a 96 foot long building, with the other dimensions being similar.  Since we had a few years of experience with Eden before we built Valhalla, we were able to address a few issues by adding ditches on each side and raising the soil surface inside the building with respect to the surrounding area.  There is also access to water in each position of Valhalla - not something we enjoy with Eden.  We have to pull hoses out to Eden when we want to irrigate.

Back to the Question

So, what exactly is the point for our farm to be using two mobile high tunnels as a part of our growing system?

1. Season Extension

This is the most commonly cited reason for high tunnel growing.  The protection afforded to crops has allowed us have spinach in March and lettuce in December.  We have had green beans and tomatoes in early November.  So - yes.  We can gain a little flexibility in what we grow effectively and have fresh produce for more months of the year.  We can also extend the harvest of some crops that bear fruits (such as peppers, tomatoes, beans).

2. Adjusting for Wet Years at GFF

One of our biggest problems at the Genuine Faux Farm since we started has been the number of heavy rains and overly wet months during our growing seasons.  A high tunnel allows us some measure of control for how wet things get.  Well - most of the time.  It's a moot point if the water table gets so high that it seeps into the building.

When the rest of the farm is wet, we can normally get work done inside the high tunnels.  If there are crops that really do poorly in wetter conditions, they tend to thrive in the high tunnels.  If you grow heirloom tomatoes you can make sure to harvest ripening fruit prior to irrigating.  That's not always a choice in the field - when it rains, it rains.

3. The dicamba issue

The increased use of dicamba has resulted in more cases of that chemical vaporizing and drifting after application.  Since 2016, when dicamba was approved for use in soybeans, we have watched some of our crops (such as peppers) suffer in the field, while their counterparts in the high tunnel perform as they have in the past.  It's almost enough to make me wish we could put up an invisible shield around our farm.

But, since that is not an option, we move some of the more sensitive production into Eden and Valhalla.  We can't move everything in there, of course, so we have to make careful choices.  It's part of the reason why our high tunnel space could be considered the 'high rent district' on our farm.

4. Production

Typically, once we figure out a crop in the high tunnels, production numbers per square foot are much higher than they would be outdoors.  For example, it was common to get maybe 50 Jaune Flamme snack tomatoes per plant in a season when they were grown in the field.  In the high tunnel, it is common to get triple that number.  We have similar results for green beans (3 pounds per row foot vs 1 pound).

In some cases, such as carrots, we often struggle with field production on our farm but find they do ok in the high tunnels.  If the option is reliable crop vs likely crop failure, the choice could be pretty simple.

5. Cleaner crops

If plants are sheltered from heavy rains and winds, leaves tend to be subject to less tearing and bruising, plants break less often, fruit are damaged less often, and there isn't going to be a bunch of splashed on dirt and debris after a downpour.  From the perspective of harvesting and cleaning for sales, it is just a good deal easier for us.  When labor is one of your biggest issues, this can be a pretty big deal.

6. We still grow in the ground and we still work with nature

This is where the mobile buildings come in to play.  We are able to allow the soil an opportunity to rejuvenate itself when it is exposed to the elements.  This would not be true if we had a stationary building.  So, soil health remains one of our key premises for a healthy growing system.  We also do not expend extra energy with fans and supplemental heat.  We use venting, passive heat retention, and passive solar gain to do these jobs. 

I recognize that some growers might scoff and suggest we could squeeze even more out of these buildings - but I feel the rate of return would begin to diminish for us if we pushed further.  Sometimes enough is enough.

The Drawbacks

There are always drawbacks to any tool and any thing a farm might try to do.  If you don't see them, you aren't really looking or you are lying to yourself.

Obviously, buildings require maintenance.  The plastic has to be replaced every five to six years and I am not a fan of adding plastic to the landfill.  Now, we do try to re-use the old plastic.  But, it does eventually run out of uses and it does eventually end up in the landfill.  There is no recycling recourse available to us at this time.

But, replacing the plastic is not the only thing.  If you have high tunnels, you must be aware of the weather so you can shut them down if severe weather threatens and open them up again if the sun comes back out (or you'll bake your plants to death!).  Every time it hails or the wind howls, you wonder a little what you'll find when you go look at the buildings later.  The string on the roll up sides need replacing every so often and various things do wear out and need replacing over time.

They're tools/buildings.  They require attention.  That attention costs you time and money.  And, of course, they cost you money to put them up in the first place.  Which means you may also spend money on insurance in case they are destroyed in a storm.

And that's not the only thing.  I often wonder about the long-term costs for the health of our soil and the environment that surrounds it when I cover it with plastic.  We try to mitigate some of those costs by using the movable buildings.  We mitigate it further by not allowing ourselves to cover our entire farm in high tunnels.  But, I am fairly certain that plastic covered buildings are not as friendly to the environment as other options might be.  

Let me put it this way.  I refuse to fool myself into thinking that my farm is always in line with what is best with nature.  If I keep questioning, maybe I can eventually get as close to in line with nature as is possible.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And the final issue that comes to mind?  Once you invest in a high tunnel, your exit strategy for growing becomes a whole lot more complicated!  I've seen many similar structures as they simply become more ragged from neglect over a period of years.  It isn't so simple just to take them down and let the land return to what it was.  And it gets harder to convince yourself to cease growing entirely once those buildings are in place.

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And there you go.  A long answer to a short question.  I hope it was of interest and maybe you learned something new?  Have a great remainder of the week!

Onions, High Tunnels and Choices

 We made the choice to expand our onion production in 2019 with the understanding that there was the likelihood that we would have some bulk orders for onions if we could successfully grow them.  After all, we have had pretty good success for each of the past several years, it seemed like a good bet.  Now, here we are in August after planting 10,000-12,000 onion plants this Spring and we're starting to bring in the onions. 

Ailsa Craig Exhibition sweet onions

 The first thing everyone should understand is that when we plant 10,000 onions, we do NOT expect to harvest 10,000 onions.  Some plants will not survive the cultivation process and some just won't produce a good onion.  We also realize that some of the varieties we choose will not provide us with consistent sizes or shapes.  This has not been a big deal because our CSA customers often have different ideas about what an optimal size for an onion should be.  The range in production doesn't hurt when your customer base likes some of the size options.
 

White Wing onions

This season saw a very difficult planting period with mucky soil conditions.  The difficulty is that if you want good onions in Iowa, you need to get them in early.  Our region tends to grow long-day length type onions better than short-day or day length neutral onions.  Essentially, long day onions are triggered to bulb by daylight periods of 14 to 15 hours.  So, we need to get onions in the ground in time so they can establish a healthy plant BEFORE they worry about bulbing out.  Typically, the more established the plants are prior to reaching the daylight threshold, the better the onion crop is going to be for consistent and larger sized onions.

So, what happened this year?  We got onions in at different points in time depending on when we were able to 'mud them in.'  The poor early soil conditions have led to inconsistent production.  We've got lots of onions, but the sizes are all over the map.  The taste has been good and we'll see how they store.  We certainly can't say that we are disappointed because there is some good onion production here.  But, it's not the picture of perfection we had in our heads.  Even so, it is marketable - so now we need to sell it all.  The whole plan falls to the ground if we can't move them!

Valhalla in late July

 The high tunnels, once again, were indirectly impacted by the early season weather.  The best laid plans for planting order and location never seem to be implemented because we are always making adjustments for the weather - even when we are inside buildings!

How does that work, you ask?  Well...  if you can't get a crop in the ground outside, you might press some of the inside space into service for something you were not planning.  And, if you were planning on moving a building, but it is too wet or windy to do so, you have to delay that move.  It is what it is and we go through this at some level every season.

If you look at the picture of Valhalla above, you will see a good deal of open space.  That is not the way it was supposed to be at this point, but, we've moved a few things around and they are now slotted for some late Summer plantings to fill in some of our Fall - early winter crop needs.  The trick is that we want the tomatoes, peppers and other crops already in there to stretch their production into late October (and maybe early November) so we have to select compatible crops that will germinate in the conditions found in the building in August.  It's a giant jigsaw puzzle.  Good thing we like puzzles.

Eden in late July

Eden is much more crowded than Valhalla for a couple of reasons.  First, we will move the building to the West position in October - we think.  Remember the adjustments and conditions issues that occur in the Spring?  Well, Fall has been an adventure the last couple of years.  Remember the continuous rain last September, for example?

We made a choice this year to hill up the planting space in Eden to deal with the issue of torrential rains flooding out crops in this building.  You might be able to see what I mean if you click on the picture to make a larger version.  The good news is that the couple of heavy rains that got Eden wet inside the building this year did not impact the crops.  The bad news?  Well, things in hilled beds dry out faster.  And, during normal weather, high tunnels are DRY areas that require irrigation.  Every choice has its consequences.

Regardless of the issues, we can say that our efforts have led to success.  The early Summer lettuce crop (that grows up in the shade of the young tomatoes) was great - except we couldn't sell it all when it was ready.  The birds were happy.  The tomatoes are looking very good, the peppers have already produced above prior year levels and beans are doing well.  The melons are about on par for a normal season and the basil looks great.  We do feel as if we lost some flexibility with this model as it doesn't really support some of the crops we traditionally have grown in Eden.  But, it all worked well enough that we can make adjustments rather than abandoning the whole thing.

And there you have it... onions, high tunnels and choices.

High Tunnel Report

The obvious disadvantage of creating blog posts when time and the weather allows is that you're going to get some content that is 'dated' when it comes in the form of a farm report.  But, since that's never stopped me before - here we go.

The Genuine Faux Farm high tunnels are usually our happiest places on the farm when it comes to successful growing.  This year we have to admit that the success levels have not been where we usually want them, but there have been some good things so far (and more good coming).  The pictures and commentary shown here applies as of about June 8, so things will have changed dramatically by the time this June 15 post comes online.

Eden

We have named our high tunnels (in case you hadn't read about them before) and our first (and smaller) high tunnel was called Eden soon after our first Fall harvests in 2010.  This is the building where we learned new things about cold weather and metal structures. 

Eden is a 72 foot by 30 foot building and it can be moved between a west and an east position.  The plan is typically to move the building in the Fall to cover the late Fall and overwintered crops.  We did do that last Fall, but we are discovering more problems with a high water-table in that position, which reduces production significantly.  As a result, we moved the building AGAIN this Spring.

Every decision of this nature has a domino effect.  One of the dominoes is that the planting in Eden for the Summer crops went in later than we wanted.  They'll be fine, of course.  Just not the schedule we hoped for.  There are tomatoes on the far left with lettuce next to them.  Beets are seeded next to peppers.  Onion and melons in the center.  Peppers and green beans next followed by lettuce and tomatoes on the right.

Our bean and beet germination has been disappointing, so we need to address that quickly.  Otherwise, plant development is moving rapidly for the other crops.  Even as I write this and look at this picture, I realize that the inside of the building no longer looks like this.

The issue with the West position of the high tunnel will be addressed before we move the tunnel to that spot again this Fall.  The plan at present is to create semi-permanent raised beds on that end to get the roots up out of the wet soil.  A secondary item may well be to put some drain tile in.  If we can manage to find the time, etc we will do both.  But, we're pretty realistic about how much we can do and we'll be happy if we can manage one of the two before Fall.  Well - we'll have to be happy, because we really don't see how we could do both this year.  Even a slight improvement should help here, so we'll go for it.

Valhalla

We don't always remember what brought us to certain names for things on our farm, but once a name sticks, it sticks.  We consider ourselves warrior farmers of a sort since it takes a bit of battling every year to get things to go. Therefore, it makes sense to have a place for the warriors to go and reap a little reward... hence Valhalla.  It doesn't have to be completely accurate with Norse mythology - we just needs to be happy with the name.  Check.

Valhalla went up in June of 2015 and our blog post commemorating that event even includes a neat time elapse of the process.   This building is bigger (96 feet long by 30 feet) and it has water hydrants for each of the two positions.  We even had a ditch cut in next to it to keep the inside from getting too wet (see the issues with Eden we are now addressing). 

Valhalla is scheduled to house our late Summer crops and we target late May for a move date.  As of this writing, we hadn't gotten to it yet.  But, by the posting of this writing, we hope to have it done.  Remember those dominoes?  Well, the time energy for moving a high tunnel got moved on Eden, so we still need to create new time and energy for the Valhalla move.  Yay?
 

In the Spring, Valhalla is used to house trays and pots of plants awaiting planting in the fields.  We also grow Spring crops in there that we anticipate moving the building off of before they bolt.  This year, things got pretty hot pretty fast after being pretty cold pretty late.  That made our window for this building PRETTY short.  Ah well.  It will even out in the end, right?

There is some very nice lettuce in there still.  The kale looks fine and should be ok for continued harvests.  The early broccoli is healthy as well.  The tatsoi and komatsuna have been harvested.  The spinach didn't have a chance this year, so it is already gone.
Once Valhalla is moved to the West position, it will house more tomatoes, peppers, green beans, melons, carrots and other tasty things.  We are anxious to get this done and get those plants in, just as we very much want these plants to go 'outside' so they can finish off successfully.

Maybe this Summer will be the Summer BOTH high tunnels break some of their own records.  We can always dream - and then do what we can to make those dreams come true.

Eden in 2017

We try to take pictures of most, if not all, of our plots/fields (whatever you want to call them) at least once a month for our own records.  Sometimes, we share them as part of blog posts throughout the season.  Or, if the picture is particularly nice, it might show up in a presentation.  Every year, I tell myself that I'll make a post or two that shows everyone the progression of a particular field or crop through the season.  This assumes two things.  First, I make the time to do the post.  Second, that I actually have a decent set of pictures to begin with.  For some reason, there is always a month where I just don't get a picture of one field or another.

This year, it looks like we have enough to do a time lapse on Eden, the smaller and older high tunnel building on our farm.  We put Eden up in 2010 and put new plastic on it in 2016.  It's been the subject of several blog posts in the past, in case you were wondering. 

Blank slate in April

Often, we will over-Winter crops in the high tunnel.  Things like spinach, lettuce and kale.  Sometimes it works out well.  Sometimes it does not.  With the addition of Valhalla (our newer high tunnel), we were able to schedule the overwintered crops in that building so we could start Summer crops sooner in Eden this year.

Plants are in and already in need of a May weeding.

Of course, the best laid plans often go awry when Mother Nature is involved.  We had an early Spring with far less sun than usual (despite how nice the pictures above look).  So, things didn't bust out of the gate as we expected them to.  Even so, we got the tomatoes and peppers in much earlier than we have in prior years.  We're won't be entirely sure if we benefited from that or not until we do our analysis for the year.  My gut tells me that it was a bit of a wash this time around.  Call it a proof of concept year?

June saw some rapid growth.  Nice lettuce next to the tomatoes!

As you may already know, we do not like to plant any of our fields in just one crop.  We believe diversity is the best kind of insurance and the best way to inexpensively control pests and diseases.  The picture above shows tomatoes on the left with lettuce next to it.  The bigger leafed plants in the middle right are golden beets and carrots are next door to those.  Not pictured above are melons, beans, peppers, herbs and cherry tomatoes... oh, and a little swiss chard as an experiment.

Looking very good in early July!

The picture above is how we ideally see our high tunnels in our minds eye.  The weeds are under control.  The plants are a beautiful shade of green and it is obvious that they are all healthy at this point.  Well, the lettuce that remains is bolting - but that's to be expected.  We had harvested all but a few plants which went to the turkeys soon after this picture was taken.

There are a few issues.  The beans are trying to take over the peppers because they are SOOOO happy.  The tomatoes have reached the top of their trellising, so we were going to need to add more height to it soon.  And, the melons didn't have a particularly good year in Eden this year.  We tried to start them too early.  We'll know better for next year - we just shouldn't push them too hard early.

Early August - what happened?

Heavy rains in late July, combined with the harvest of the beets left us with a high tunnel that was decidedly less happy than it had been.  The beans are gone, boiled away by excessive water and heat well before we got our normal production out of them.  The carrots were harvested as well, but fully half of them rotted away at the water table line.  The good news?  We had already harvested the first flush (and then some) from the beans, we weren't shut out on the carrots and the rest of the crops were fine after things dried out some.

At this point, I stopped taking pictures every month.  The tomatoes on the right (cherry tomatoes) are now touching the top of the high tunnel and the tomatoes on the left of the picture are a good three foot (or more) taller.  It is late October, so they are showing signs of finishing, despite a very large number of fruit still on the vines.  The peppers have held their own this year, which is good considering the poor performance of the field peppers.  The golden beets were tasty and of good size.  The melons were a bit sparse, but well received.  Happily the melons in Valhalla picked up the slack this year. 

Very soon, we will move Eden to its other position so it can cover some lettuce, chard, kale, pok choi, spinach, tatsoi, komatsuna and other goodies for Winter or early Spring harvest.  The tomatoes that look like they will still ripen will get harvested and brought in and the vines will be taken down.  We'll clean off the peppers and harvest the chard.  We've had better years in Eden than this, but it surely hasn't been a horrible season by any measure with nearly 1300 pounds of produce in this 30 foot by 72 foot building.

Gardening in Eden

The most difficult things about blogging and farming at the same time:
1. Finding time to blog while the season is really going.  Solution: write a bunch of blog posts at a time when weather is bad, etc)
2. Dealing with posts that wait two or more weeks to show up with pictures that no longer represent how things look on the farm.
3. Failing to remember all of the great ideas you had when you were out weeding/picking something.  Ok, I have not good solution for that one.
4. Looking and seeing you have NO MORE posts in the pipeline and you'd better do something about.
and finally
5. Wanting to produce quality posts and realizing you only have time for a rough approximation of that.

Which brings me to this post's topic. 

Our older high tunnel building that we have named "Eden."

Eden has shown up in many prior posts and you're just going to either have to take my word for it OR you can go look for those posts.  That's a sacrifice I make to get posts out during this time of year, I tend not to create back links all that often.

Ever since it's construction in 2010, we have enjoyed the opportunities Eden has provided for us to extend the season in the Fall and Winter as well as some in the Spring.  But, July may be my favorite time in Eden. 

Here's why:

Tomatoes, lettuce, golden beets, carrots, peppers and beans.

It looks wonderful in there!  The most amazing thing is how quickly things changed.  I downloaded this picture a couple days after I took it and recognized how much bigger all of the plants were than the picture showed.  And, the other side of the tunnel looked like this:

Cucumbers, melons, lettuce, bunching onions, peppers, chard and beans.

We pack a fair amount in there and we try to maintain diversity as much as we are able.  We wanted to get some sweet alysum in there, but found out we didn't order the seeds.  So, we have a few plants we'll pop in there.  Otherwise, there is some thyme along the north edge.

Uh oh!  Weeds in Eden!  Better get on that.

High tunnels have the positive/negative result that you can work even on rainy days.   The next rainy day will find us out there weeding.  Or maybe a late evening/early morning if rain doesn't come soon enough.

Black Krim tomatoes... on the way.

We managed to get the early heirlooms into Eden at about the time we wanted.  Here we are in early July with tomatoes looking like they might ripen fairly soon.  The numbers are not huge early on, but they'll likely get there.  Plants are healthy and we've trellised up to the top of the stakes already.  Guess we've got to extend the trellis.

Darned ants!

Something we haven't experienced much before is the negative impact of an ant hill next to tomato plants.  These two were badly stunted when an ant hill rapidly developed at their base.  For the most part, we like ants.  Just not this particular hill.

Just to show you all I can turn the camera sideways.

The bunching onions were an experiment this year.  We have grown White Wing bulbing onions in here in the past and they have done well.  But, we wanted to see if we could direct seed some bunching onions with good results.  They look fine, but we're not sold at this point.  This was especially true when weather did not cooperate for us to get the field onions in when we wanted.  Such is the life of farmers.

Thanks for reading our blog, come back soon!

A New Skin Needed

In 2010, we put up our first high tunnel as part of a PFI field day.  We had plenty of help that made the experience go well (and relatively quickly).

Suddenly, it is 2016 - and the plastic is over 6 years old.  We've been incredibly fortunate that it is still intact (for the most part), but it would be folly to try to get one more Winter out of it. 

So - we are trying to get people together Sunday morning (early), September 11 to help us put a new skin on this building.  If you are interested, please send us a note and tell us that you are willing to help. 

Please contact us and let us know you will attend.  If you just show up, you (and we) may be disappointed.  Why?  Well, if we don't hear from enough people, we may cancel.  Your arrival in that case might be a bit awkward.

Why Sunday morning?

Well, there are some critical weather factors that come into play.

1. There can't be wind.
2. We really don't want to do this when it rains
3. If it gets too cold, pulling plastic isn't a good idea either.

It just so happens that Sunday AM should be sunny, with low wind.  Temps will be in the 50's, which is acceptable, even if you might personally find it chilly as compared to recent temperatures.

Rob and Tammy will be working on Saturday to pull off the old plastic and do some repairs prior to Sunday.  There is also some setup to do - such as setting up some scaffolding and finding ladders and materials so the process on Sunday morning will go smoothly.

Of course, if the weather changes OR if we don't get enough help OR if there is an unforeseen problem, we will have to reschedule.  But, the weather forecast for this time period hasn't changed for days and we'll do everything we can to avoid the unforeseen problem.

The real variable here is the number of helping hands.  Two people cannot do it.  Probably the absolute minimum will be eight.

These high tunnels have been an important part of our farm for some time now.  They provide us with on-farm crop insurance of a sort.  This year, the field tomatoes have taken a major hit, but, our high tunnel tomatoes are going strong.  Without them, we would likely be apologizing to our customers that we don't have much for tomatoes this year.  And, that fresh spinach many of you love in April?  Well, that's part of what these buildings do for us (and you).

Thank you for considering our request for help and we hope to see some of you on Sunday.

A Chart Worth 100 Words

 Since we've been focusing on high tunnels and the potential of getting grant funding help to put in a second high tunnel, it only makes sense to begin thinking....

A dangerous pastime....  (you know).

Tammy and I were under a bit of stress this year given the very late start for much of our produce.  Now that we are approaching the end of the regular CSA season, we wondered if perhaps we misremembered.  After all, some of the numbers for things like, tomatoes, are looking pretty good now.

For example, our high tunnel snack tomato numbers look fabulous.  In fact, we've pulled in over 1700 of those beauties this season (with more likely to follow).  Not bad for 18 plants.  Eighteen plants, I might add, that also were put in much later than we wanted because we were stretching Spring crops out.

So, based on those numbers, it made us both start to question whether our worry earlier in the year was founded - or if it had just grown in our minds.  The result of this wondering is a weekly production chart shown above.  We can now see that it wasn't until mid-August before we were pulling in a snack tomato per CSA family.

It is no wonder that the two of us were beginning to wonder if *any* of our tomatoes were going to provide for us.  We have no qualms about having lots of tomatoes in October.  That's fine.  Really.  But, we'd also like some in August.