We currently have two small, unheated high tunnels (aka greenhouses) on our farm. They are far and away our most important pieces of infrastructure for making our produce available nearly year-round. They help extend our growing season of tender crops in the spring and fall and enable the cold-hardy crops to survive our cold winters. But what about summer?
This time of year, our high tunnels are in a period of transition. Let’s explore how we make that happen!
Preparing for Summer Crops
The first step to prepare our tunnels for summer is, like most first steps, good planning. We detail what crops we want to grow in the small amount of indoor space we have and how much of each we can manage.
For us, this starts with 3 primary crops: tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. There are a couple of reasons that these 3 are guaranteed space in our high tunnels. The first is that these crops are most productive when on a trellis, and the overhead trusses of our high tunnels are the ideal trellis support system.
Believe it or not, these crops also tend to perform better when their leaves don’t get rained on. Rain promotes soil and air-borne diseases, which tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are all highly susceptible to. Growing them under a cover keeps their leaves dry and reduces disease.
These crops also generally love heat, and our high tunnels provide more soil and air heat earlier in the season and later into the fall than outside.
In addition to these 3 important crops, we also ensure we have space for ginger root, which, as a tropical grass, also greatly prefers the heat of a high tunnel. These crops usually fill most of our tunnel space, and we fill out the rest with quick crops like lettuce and green onions as the season goes on.
Preparing And Transplanting
Before we plant these crops into our tunnels, we do quite a bit of prep work to turn the tunnel from a good home for spring greens to a haven for tomatoes.
After clearing the old crops, we switch over our irrigation system from overhead sprinklers to drip irrigation lines. Remember, we’re trying to keep our leaves dry over the summer.
We also take time to add lots of compost and nitrogen amendments to help with soil fertility. Our summer crops are also very hungry for nutrients and grow over a very long season, so the extra nutrients are a must!
Finally, we transplant. Peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes are all transplanted from 4″ pots, so we dig holes on each bed using a drill-powered auger. Our summer crops generally have only one row on a 30″ bed. For tomatoes, we add a wet blob of highly nutritious, homemade compost to the bottom of the hole to help get the plant off and running.
After Transplanting
After transplanting and turning on our drip irrigation timers, the high tunnel is ready to go for the summer! Tomatoes and peppers will grow and produce right through the first frosts in October. We make a visit to the tunnels several times a week to weed, prune, and harvest.
It is always a joy to transition our high tunnels into summer production!