Adding A Third High Tunnel To The Farm

We have been lucky enough in our first 3 years of farming to come out on the other side of the “start-up” phase doing relatively well. We’ve been able to maintain enough cash flow to cover expenses and pay ourselves (well, just me!) a modest salary to cover our bills. My goal for starting the farm was always to minimize upfront expenses and infrastructure. Firstly, because I didn’t want to spend more money to start the farm than was absolutely required, and also because less infrastructure means that we can more easily pivot the farm or business if it doesn’t turn out the way we thought.

Well, after 3 years, I feel that we have a much clearer focus on what the farm is and what we’d like it to be. For reasons that we’ll get into here, we made a BIG purchase this summer. Good Dirt Farm has added a new high tunnel, quadruple the size of the first two high tunnels we built. I couldn’t be more excited!

Why Build Another High Tunnel?

For a small-scale, intensive market garden like ours, there are few investments that beat high tunnels. In our first few years, I wanted to make sure that this style of farming was really what I wanted to do, what our community needed, and what our land was capable of. Any grower who’s sure this style of farming is their goal would likely be spending every extra cent on increasing covered space, which usually means high tunnels. 3 years in, I’m much more sure that is the goal for me. So, getting another tunnel was a no-brainer.

The benefits of a high tunnel to a farm like ours are almost too many to list, but I will do my best here! The first and perhaps most obvious advantage is season extension. We’ve talked before about how high tunnels extend the growing season for all crops, and even make it possible to grow fresh crops right through winter. It follows that if you have more covered space available, you can grow more food in the “shoulder seasons,” and even winter.

For us, this means many things that are great for the farm and business. We will be able to get MANY more crops for our first couple of weeks of CSA/markets, making those early CSA shares even more valuable for our customers. We’ll also be able to grow way more cool-season fall crops into November and December for fall CSAs and markets.

Right now, our tomato and pepper season ends at the beginning of October because we have to remove those plants to make way for other crops. With this new high tunnel, however, we have the ability to let those crops go as long as we possibly can, basically until we get a hard freeze. This can mean a month or more of those profitable (and delicious!) crops.

More than anything else, though, this tunnel will help our farm be more of a “four-season” farm. Going into things, I always sort of knew that I wasn’t the type to produce a massive amount of food in the summer and be mostly closed down for the cold months. I’m sure some might love the time off for rest and reset, but I would much rather have a more balanced workload that still gives me quieter months in the winter, but doesn’t require 100 hours of backbreaking work a week in the summer to get by.

With this extra space, the farm can be a little less bonkers in the summer, and we can stay busier through the fall, winter, and spring. Plus, who doesn’t want to eat local food all year?

This tunnel also adds all the traditional benefits of any high tunnel. Better climate control, irrigation control, and sunlight control generally will improve crop growth and yields. In other words, the same amount of space managed well under a tunnel can grow much more food and yield a higher profit than field space.

A Major Upgrade

Not only does this new high tunnel take our total count of tunnels from 2 to 3, it’s also a HUGE upgrade over our other two tunnels.

Our existing tunnels are 16′ by 48′. The new tunnel is 30′ by 96′. That is just about quadruple the space of the other two, and about triple the overall tunnel space for the farm, just like that.

A larger tunnel like this will generally have a more moderated temperature, as the thermal mass inside the structure is higher. This should make for slightly better performance in the spring, fall, and winter.

There are a few technical upgrades on our new tunnel as well. The top poly is “double layer,” meaning that instead of one plastic layer over the structure, there are two. There is a small inflation fan that forces air between the layers. This adds some insulation to the structure, and also makes the plastic much more resistant to tearing in winds.

The ventilation system on our new tunnel is also much more advanced. Our old tunnels have gable fans and louvers on the ends that open and close on a thermostat. The new tunnel also has louvers at each end attached to a thermostat, but they are passive, so no fan.

The major ventilation change is the roll-up sides, which are automatic for the new tunnel. Basically, instead of hand-cranking the sides up in the morning and lowering them at night, there are motors attached to each side roll bar. The motors are connected to a thermostat that opens and closes them based on the temperature inside the tunnel. Opening and closing roll-up sides can be a lot of work, and this upgrade will mean that the tunnel basically moderates its own temperature.

Other great features include baseboards all the way around so we won’t have weeds growing up the outside, big roll-up garage door-sized entrances at each end, and a man-door at the front end.

This new tunnel is also big enough that we plan to move our seed-starting nursery out there from our tiny stand-alone nursery. The old nursery got the job done, but it was relatively cramped and certainly did not maintain an even temperature without a lot of effort.

Following getting the tunnel fully up and running this fall, we plan to move a few things around the farm to improve the functionality of the space. Moving our composting area to the front wall of the tunnel will allow us to open up our work area and also give us more options for redesigning and improving how we make compost. Our old nursery may stay where it is or get a new home and purpose.

This will be our first winter really seeing what our new growing setup can do! We’re hopeful that we can have fresh greens for our restaurants all winter long, and potentially even more. Past that, we are certain that this new tunnel will pay for itself in a couple of years, and that it will bring our farm closer to the “four-season” dream we have for it!