High Tunnel Rehab

The propogation greenhouse is steadily filling up with vegetable and flower seedlings.

Soon enough, these will start making their way into the ground.

The earliest transplants will be into the high tunnel in just a couple of weeks.

Speaking of the high tunnel, we’ve had a lot of flooding problems in there the last couple of years.

While it hasn’t always resulted in complete crop failure, it’s caused a lot of headaches.

After lots of discussions with lots of problem solvers, we took some big steps last year to prevent this recurring issue.

As of yesterday, no flooding!!!

Here’s how we got there:

Last spring we hired an excavator to create a sloped waterway around the perimeter of the tunnel.

We didn’t think we were putting the high tunnel in a low spot.

But even though it’s subtle elevation change, heavy rains do pool inside.

The waterway directs the excess water from surrounding areas to a lower area of the property.

The waterway was seeded to various grass and clover varieties that can handle wet soils.

These plants will help minimize erosion.

Last December, after the final Fall CSA harvest, we took the excavated soil and added it to the bed tops. About 6-8” worth.

Then we added wood chip mulch to the pathways to support the newly raised beds.

And finally, we added a thick layer of compost to each bed as a nutritous mulch to help feed the soil and reduce weed pressure this spring.

Now, we’re more confident in utilizing this space to help extend the front and back end of the growing season for our CSA!