Youtube is a wonderful thing. It helps with ideas and if you find someone reliable and who knows their subject matter – a great way to learn and troubleshoot problems. Last summer we had watched a few videos with high tunnel gardens. The principal advantage is you can extend your growing season beyond the last-first frost dates. High tunnels are however are expensive.

One of the channels we watch however recommended Farmers Friend, a company out of Tennessee. They manufacture a caterpillar tunnel that is portable, easy to assemble, and better yet – less than most high tunnels. While they are a bit different – they can be made more permanent and for the scale of our farm, they were perfect.

I ordered a 50 foot Gothic Pro in the 14-foot wide model – with shipping it came in around $1500. Shipping was via truck and it arrived last August. Then we had fires break out in our area and between the air quality, heat, and end of the season – We didn’t get it put up last year. Over the winter we planned out our location and managed to get the tunnel installed a bit later than we would have liked. However, it’s up and it’s amazing!

The tunnel arrived via truck freight – fortunately not a huge truck
Nice and compact – easy to move with the tractor

We cleared an area on the back corner of the property. It’s very close to the well-house so we have easy access to water and even power should we eventually need it. This is a bit of a no-use space for us so it’s perfect for something like the high tunnel.

We cleared a spot by the well house and moved our burn pile to make room
Everything is bundled and labeled well. The water damage on the boxes is from sitting over the winter.
Road cloth going down – and started driving in the bow rebar on the corners.
First raised bed constructed. Due to lumber costs – this proved to be almost the same cost as the tunnel itself.

After doing some moderate amount of leveling, we added some road cloth weed barrier and built two raised beds. One is 40 feet long and the other is 30 feet long. We have some pots, grow bags, and a greenhouse table to use for potting and plant starts.

Bows installed with cross braces, wind braces, and purlins.
Beds complete, drip tape installed, and trellis for the indeterminate tomatoes in place.

We left the ends open for the summer with plans to close them off toward the end of the summer season – we would need to keep them open in the heat anyway – so no use spending the extra cash before we need to. I’ve added some new drip tape to both beds with a timer to provide automatic watering schedules.

Plastic in place
Planted May 16th 2021

For the summer planting we added plants that need more heat and protection and they are taking off!

  • Tomatoes – Intederminate and Determinate – I think we have about 10 different varieties.
  • Tomatillos
  • Cucumbers – an English variety and a couple of regular slicing varieties.
  • Basil
  • Eggplant
  • Peppers – here we have quite a variety as well.
June 23 2021
Tomatoes!

In the fall we will change out for more cold-hardy varieties of plants like brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, and maybe some weird things like Kohlrabi.

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Posted: June 24, 2021

Category: Farm, Garden, Journal