Part I: Our Winter Plans

People often ask me about winter, how do make money on a farm in winter?  What are you planning to do?  We have recently started on a project I’ve been interested in for a very long time,  winter growing.

Late last winter we installed a low tunnel,  basically a plastic covered half circle that was about three feet high.  It worked very well and we harvested very early crops of arugula,  bok choy, radishes and more.  We are planning on having at least two low tunnels this year to grow into the winter and for an early spring planting.  But we have also started construction of a high tunnel.

Our high tunnel will be 56 feet long,  12 feet wide,  and about 7 feet tall in the center. With it we will be able to grow into early winter and hopefully again in late winter,  Part II of this blog post will deal more with the details of how this all works.

We are using a high tunnel hoop bender from Johnny’s Select Seeds. With it we are able to bend the ribs of the tunnel ourselves out of the top rail used in chain link fencing.  Johnny’s has sort of perfected this system and the directions are easy to follow.

It won’t be a permanent structure,  we are planning to keep it up for a year or so and then dismantle it and move it to a more permanent location.  One of the advantages of using the bender is that in the future,  we can extend this tunnel as much as we want and add new tunnels inexpensively.  We aren’t finished yet,  but I’m expecting the cost to be around $2 a square foot.

We are also adding wire supports running the length of the tunnel that will be directly over two of the beds.  In the summer these beds will be planted with tomatoes which will be supported by strings hanging from the wires. With a little luck,  w should get 4-5 crops a year from the finished tunnel.

Stay tuned for part II of this post: How do you grow vegetables in the winter?