Last week we went to Gladwin, MI for a hoophouse site visit. During the site visit we planted a few beds of tomatoes with the farmer.
Last week we went to Gladwin, MI for a hoophouse site visit. During the site visit we planted a few beds of tomatoes with the farmer.
We just got back from a hoophouse training build in Menominee, MI.
Photos from some farm visits
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
A few weeks ago we took a trip to visit
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
This past weekend at my own farm we squar
Link to plans for wash pack systems from Iowa State's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
While we wait for spring to decide when it's going to arrive here in Michigan
A peak at what March looks like at the MSU Student Organic Farm
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Here are some photos from a look around the student farm yesterda
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
From talking to a few farmers it has been a slow to start spring due to the lack of sunny days. Most of the late February direct seeded crops are just starting to germinate in the past week or so. Since not too much is go
Head Lettuce in a hoophouse at the Student Organic Farm (photo taken in Late March of 2012)
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Here in Michigan we
For those located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, this webinar might be of interest to you:
U.P.
An interview w
The Hoophouses for Health Loan Program was recently featured in an online article written by GRIT magazine.
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
With the end of February upon us, it’s time to get started with filling up the hoophouses again with a new round of cool season crops. Last weekend I transplanted out some spinach into the hoophouse at home.
2/22/13 Two tips for when to start shoveling.
Written By Laura Haselhuhn
Hoophouse production can often by heavily reliant on transplant production.
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Written By Laura Haselhuhn
February 21, 2013
Today is the day that tomatoes can be started for the hoophouse summer production.
If you haven't found the time to make it to a conference this year, fear not, the internet has a wealth of information and webinars that can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home.
Practical farmers of Iowa is an organization of farmers/supporters out in Iowa.
February 21st is the date to start tomato transplants.
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Adding to the post yesterday about baseboard options, today it seems fitting to talk about endwall options for hoophouses.
Written By Laura Haselhuhn
With lows close to zero the past few days I hope everyone is staying warm.
January 23, 2013
A New Year of Record Keeping-The first four steps to taking better records start before even sharpening your pencil
Written By Laura Haselhuhn
With a new year comes a new chance to get started with keeping records. If your New Year’s resolution has anythi
Photo credit: Adam Montri
January in the hoophouse-Gearing up for a new year of farming
I’m back from Great Lakes Fruit & Vegetable, with a grocery tote full of brochures of information and seed catalogs. The Expo was great, I had a chance to talk to some of the farmers that we work with, and of course I went to some very informative sessions-a session on effective use of social media and a pa
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Two weeks ago we visited Kelly Vallelunga at Long Valley Farm near Kalamazoo. She recently added a 30’x 96’ hoophouse t
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Two weeks ago we visited Koelbel Farm. Herman has been growing food for his family for most of his life.
Next week Adam and I are headed out of the office. Adam is speaking at a farmer to farmer session on Vermont on growing greens in hoophouses, which sounds very interesting.
I'm going to be at Great Lakes EXPO moderating the Hoophouses & Tunnels session.
Freshly harvested carrots from the hoophouse
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Hopefully everyone has had a nice holiday! On Thanksgiving morning we harvested the f
As we head into the next week, if you have some time in the evening on Tuesday November 20th, you might consider registering for the Practical Farmers of Iowa Annual High Tunnel Farminar. This year the presenters are Paul and Alison Wiediger (Au Naturel Farm), and Sara Hanson (Prairie Sky Farm).
If you are interested in building some "Mid" Sized Tunnels for your farm, before you begin you might want to check out the Mid Sized Tunnel Tutorial. The tutorial is titled: "A Pictoral Guide to Preparing and Installing Gothic Framed, Outdoor Winter Ready Mid Tunnels". Dr.
Trials and tribulations of buying a used hoophouse.
Written By Laura Haselhuhn
This evening I’m headed over to hopefully finish the hoopho
Last Friday was a chilly day, with promises of snow on Saturday.
Things to think about doing in the month of November
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Yesterday was a blustery day, hail smattering the windows and gusts of winds up to 40 mph, some parts of Michigan had lost power, supposedly some residual weather from Hurricane Sandy that hit the northeast coas
Potential Site (site one) in early summer.
Last Saturday I was at my farm working on site selection and site preparation for the “new” used hoophouse.
Written By Laura Haselhuhn
Two weeks ago my colleague Brendan Sinclair gave me a tour of the Bailey GREENhouse here on the MSU campus.
Written By Laura Haselhuhn
It was a great Friday last week, we were out at Albion helping them cover their hoophouse.
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
We've gotten a few questions from farmers about different topics this week, I'll try to address one of the questions here:
How much should I plan on watering during the winter months and what tips should I k
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
This week has been a great week, some great questions have been asked. I have also been able to spend most of the time so far going through farmer records from the loan programs.
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Last Sunday we began taking down the used hoophouse to be loaded onto a trailer and driven north to my farm. We’ll then reassembl
This week on the high tunnel listserv a farmer posted a very cool and helpful video that he made on harvesting lettuce.
Check out the link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIHoNv_tJ5M&feature=youtu.be
&n
Written By Laura Haselhuhn
Well blog readers, I do have some exciting news to share with you, we are adding a large hoophouse to my family’s farm! In
Calculating how much you need to sell in order to reach break even sales through a particular outlet
Written by Laura Haselhuhn
Determining the cost to sell through a particular selling outlet Written by Laura Haselhuhn Now is Hoophouses in October-Things to think about accomplishing in October Written By Laura Haselhuhn October brings cooler weather, decreasing daylight hours, crisp fall air and last minute harvests of field grown crops. October is also the time
of year to acco Written By Laura Haselhuhn Over the course of the summer we’ve had eight workshops in
our summer Hoophouse Workshop Series. Written By Laura Haselhuhn Wondering which crops to grow this year in the hoophouse, or
the right spacing for each crop? Be sure
to check out the new resource:
Fall Crop Spotlight: Beets Now is the time to pull out the seeder and sow some beets. Beets can be seeded around August 15th through
September 15th, so there is still some time to get the beets in. Be sure to mark your calendars to sign up for the MSU Organic Fruit High Twilight Tunnel Tour. MSU professors will be leading an evening tour of the three season high tunnels. Written by Laura Haselhuhn Where did summer go? Well it’s too late to spend time
thinking about that. Hoophouse Build near Traverse
City Written by Laura Haselhuhn Two wee Check out this article on the new hoophouse that just went up next to Bailey Hall on the MSU campus. This hoophouse will provide fresh vegetables for the Brody complex cafeteria. In turn the food scraps from the cafeteria will be made into compost to be used in the hoophouse. Summer Hoophouse Workshop Series Halfway Through Recap Written By Laura Haselhuhn We are exactly half-way through the summer hoophouse
workshop series and the July 11, 2012 Written by Laura Haselhuhn Applications are once again
open for the Center for Regional Food Systems Hoophouse Loan Program. This tim Increase profitability by maximizing square feet in production Written by Laura Haselhuhn H Written by Laura Haselhuhn Growing & selling cut flowers from the hoophouse offers numerous advantages
especially for those who direct market their products through fa Be sure to check out this article on the recently built 30'x 48' hoophouse at Urbandale Farm in Lansing, Michigan. Written By Laura Haselhuhn Hoophouse summer crops are in full swing now & many
farmers are getting their first tomatoes to market these past few weeks. A Low Cost Season Extension Option: Written By: Laura Haselhuhn Here is one option that cost about $100 to build: Low cost season extension options are great to consi Report from
the hoophouse An interview
with a local hoophouse farmer Written by Laura Haselhuhn, Photos by L Written by Laura Haselhuhn Looking for a quick way to attach purlins to a hoophouse? Here’s an idea tha Organic raspberry high tunnel project, photo by Ben Gluck Written by Laura Haselhuhn Two Written by Laura Haselhuhn April 15th is the date to plant out pepper and tomato
transplants into the hoophouses. Transplants should be about 6-8 weeks
old when they are transplanted out. Written by Laura Haselhuhn, Photos: Laura Haselhuhn Here are some photos from a visit to the MSU Student Organic Farm I made last week. By Laura Haselhuhn This blog post will explain depreciation and how to use it for
decision making and comparing crop profitability in just seven easy steps. Depreciation is spreadi A Summer Hoophouse Crop Worth Considering Written by Laura Haselhuhn Cucumbers are an excellent choice to consider for a summer hoophouse crop. Cucumbers are a quick crop, and their timing fits very well with a crop schedule that has 3 crops in the hoophouse each year. Written by Laura Haselhuhn Let's keep the hoophouse map filling up, we are at 28, let's make it to 30 hoophouses! The website ha Written by: Laura Haselhuhn, Photo Credit: Laura Haselhuhn Can you believe that in a few short months we'll be harvesting tomatoes in the hoophouse? It's been a mild winter here in Michigan, Written By Laura Haselhuhn How does a farm determine prices to charge for hoophouse produce?
Determining what price to charge for each crop is one of the
most important aspects of running a farm as a business. Written by Laura Haselhuhn, Photos taken by Laura Haselhuhn Work took us to two farms this past Friday. The first located outside of Kalamazoo, unfortunately I left my camera in
the car, so I’ll do my best to describe what was growing on. The farm had multiple hoophouses, one was in a cover Written by Laura Haselhuhn, Photo Credit: Laura Haselhuhn Moving the Movable House A few tips and tricks to get the house to move The movable hoophouses ha Written by Laura Haselhuhn, Photo Credits: Laura Haselhuhn Perhaps this warm sunny day has you daydreaming about spring
growing and warmer weather. Written by Laura Haselhuhn, Photo Credit: Laura Haselhuhn Are you hoping to add a hoophouse (or
additional houses) to your current agricultural operations? Here's some information a Tools commonly used for prepping beds: the broadfork, the rake and the three tine claw. Written by Laura Haselhuhn, Photo Credit: We are planning our first harvests from the 2011 plantings for Thursday of this week. While we have been harvesting overwintered spinach for almost a month now, we will be harvesting spicy salad mix (red and green oakleaf lettuce, red russian kale, mizuna, red giant mustard, and arugula) that was planted on February 9th All the crops that were seeded in early February are up and growing with most of them having at least one set of true leaves. The pea trellis is in place and they should be getting close to grabbing on in about a week or so. The radishes are plugging forward and baby spinach has two sets of true leaves on some of We are looking for some of that sunshine from last week and early this week to find it's way in tomorrow! The soil temp seems to be hovering between 40 and 50F but on sunny days has been up to 55F earlier this week. Air temperatures were near 65 yesterday morning when the sun was shining. Thanks to everyone who has already put up their hoophouses/farms on the map. Let's keep 'em coming! After seeding last Thursday some of the baby spinach has germinated and emerged which is really fast for this time of year. I'm going to stick a thermomoter in the soil later today and see what the temp is.& For those of you south of MI you've probably started seeding for spring production, but for us in the North we're just getting long enough days and, in the past three or four days, plenty of sunshine. While that means somewhere between damp and flooded basements for those of us in old farmhouses (Boo!), it also means se Below is a picture of a recently prepped (right) and a to-be prepped (left) bed. These had carrots in them that have already been harvested out this winter and tomatoes before that. I'm back from helping Marty and Michelle build the frame of their hoophouse at Birch Point Farm in Traverse City, MI and am always amazed how much the site changes on the first day of the build. Now that the (really) cold weather is behind us and the ground has softened, the phone seems to be constantly ringing with construction questions.
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Highlights from our On-Farm-Field Day EventHere's a news clip from a project we have partnered on for a hoophouse on the shores of Lake Superior in beautiful Munising:
http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/news/video.aspx?id=437514
Here's a story tAlright, so we've got an email back from NRCS that there is no current district conservationist in our county right now. Next steps are to figure out who we need to talk to in another county to find the paperwork, etc. to keep moving this forward.As you may know, the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) has added hoophouses as an eligible practice under the EQIP program. 38 states had enrolled in the program, but Michigan was not one of them. But, a few weeks ago, Michigan NRCS decided that they would be a part of this program.We spend a lot of time talking and answering questions about ordering seed. These include where to find seeds, which crops and cultivars to grow, and how much seed to order. These can all be tricky to figure out, but let's tackle them one at a time.
So it's another New Year and I'm sure a lot of us have made the resolution we make every year about the farm.After the Burton Township Zoning Board of Appeals granted us a variance on Thursday night we've been busy building away on a 30 X 96ft hoophouse in Burton, MI (just outside Flint). Thanks to everyone who came to show their support at the meeting and also to the zoning board for the variance, questions, and comments.As we all work on hoophouse stuff around the country we try to really promote what others are doing and to not duplicate the work that has already been done. Check out the link below for a High Tunnels Manual from our friends at the University of Vermont Center for Sustainable Agriculture.Wow! It's been a while since any posts were on here and it seems like for those of us in the North that we never really got a summer at all this year. On top of the cold temperatures we also had lots of rain, which meant late blight for the us in Michigan and across the Northeast too.There's most likely a linear way that makes sense to run through these postings from site selection and preparation, to choosing and building a structure, to crop selection and management, onto harvesting, postharvesting, and marketing. While we'll get to all those in the future I don't always think in that linear way.It seems as good a time as any to kick this blog off. If you haven't checked out the <About> tab just click on it in the top right corner to see what this is all about.