A beautiful Saturday morning with nothing on the agenda… we declared it a family day in the high tunnel! All hands on deck!

We are just a few weeks away from getting our cool loving crops into the high tunnel. Planting? Are you sure? I am. Our high tunnel is unheated which means as soon as the sun goes away the temps don’t stay and it can get cold inside. Lettuce, Spinach, Carrots, and Peas all love cool weather and won’t mind if there is no heat.

This is only our second season with the high tunnel. We are still learning what we can and can’t do. Last year we spent our winter prepping our soil, mounding as many rows as possible, and covering the entire surface with landscape fabric.

This year it is maintaining what we have which includes: punching out the old soil, refilling the holes with compost, checking water lines & weeding.

While the girls were weeding they kept finding carrots!! Talk about cool loving crops!! Carrots!! They looked great!! I need to remember to plant a heavy crop of them next fall and they will store in the ground in the high tunnel through the winter for us.

Yes our kids actually come on out and work with us. Some of the kids can only put in so much time before they need to run off and play. But our older kids are amazing at putting in full days working along side us. This is one of the big reasons we moved out here and started this produce farm. We wanted our kids to learn the art of hard and consistent work. Do the kids grumble? Sometimes. But they show up on their own. By the end of the day we all walk away with full hearts feeling connected, grounded and proud of what we accomplished.

Want to see us in action? I put together a little video of us. Click here to watch.