Trip to Wegman's Organic Farm, Harris Seeds, and Worm Power

In March of this year, Clara Coleman had asked me to build a 48 ft Moveable Caterpillar Tunnel for Wegman’s Organic Farm. Both Eliot and Clara had both been consulting for Wegman’s and Clara thought it would be a good addition to all the other work they were doing there to have one of our moveable tunnels on site to present to their organic partner farms. So, we built one in the shop at our trial farm in Albion, ME.

And then we shipped it to them.

They used a portion of it in a demonstration at the Rochester Home and Garden Show and another local trade show, then sent it on to their farm. We had to include some pretty specific instructions for the covering to be used at the trade shows (which was very different from what it would be like in the field), including some line drawings. This is what one of their presentations looked like.

On June 7^th, 2012, NY Territory Sales Rep Amber Flint and I traveled to the Finger Lakes region of NY with the main goal of visiting Wegman’s Organic Farm because there had been an interest in a partnership with Johnny’s and Wegman’s and because I was interested in how they were making out with the tunnel and how else we could help them.

We decided to make a few other stops while we were in the area. Our first visit after we arrived was at the Bejo Seeds Trial Farm in Geneva. We met with farm manager Dennis Ferlito, our former sales rep Jan van der Heide, and our new sales rep Tom Gordon.

After a brief stay at the farm, they from Bejo were nice enough to take us to dinner in town at the Red Dove. Great place. Great company. Jan was nice enough to download onto a thumb drive some images of some multi-row seeders that he had taken when in Europe. Thanks, Jan!

The next day, we went to the Wegman’s grocery store in Geneva, with the hopes of getting some pictures of the store before we went to the farm.

The manager there was a little leery of that, so we left and headed for their farm in Canandaigua.

The first thing we saw when we arrived was the tunnel – front and center. Pretty cool.

We stopped at the “barn”, where we met up with their farm manager, Jamie Robinson, who was nice enough to give is a tour.

Some of the crew were washing lettuce and spinach in the washroom, which was inside the barn.

We then walked up the steep hill and toured some of their fixed tunnels, which he said were mostly Ledgewood models. Wegman’s Organic Farm is located on owner Danny Wegman’s property, along the shore of Seneca Lake. It is on a pretty steep slope, which Jamie indicated was a constant challenge. 

Then, took a close look at the two moveable tunnels that were built and installed by Four Season Tools.

After that, we headed down across the field crops to where the Moveable Caterpillar was located. They did a great job putting it up.

Next, we visited Wegman’s flagship store in Pittsford, NY (near Rochester).

We were given permission to take a few photos. Their store is like a nicer version of Whole Foods Market. Pretty awesome, really. It's like sensory overload, especially if you arrive hungry. We noticed some great displays and recognized some of our customers’ names on the produce. That was cool.

After that, we stopped at Harris Seeds to meet with Mark Greene, who is their hardgoods manager. He is also the product manager for Ken Bar products, which include mulches and heat mats. Harris bought Ken Bar last year and I was there to speak with Mark about the products that we distribute in that product line, which include the red mulch and paper’s paper mulch and just out of plain curiosity about their operation. Mark gave us a great tour, but I have just one photo of the outside.

Mark suggested that since we were in town, we should go visit the worm farm that supplies their Worm Power product. So, we headed off to Avon, NY, which was about a half hour away. We met their facility manager there, who also gave us a tour. He did not allow us to take photos, but Harris had all the photos I would have taken available to the public right on their website, so I downloaded a few of them that were very representative of what we saw. It was a fascinating operation.

A complete gallery of our entire trip is shown here (click on "Show info" in the upper right to view the captions that I've added for clarity).:




Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager

Small Equipment Demos at Tuckaway Farm

On May 15^th, NH territory sales rep Chris Hillier and I travelled to Tuckaway Farm in Lee, NH (Seacoast area) to do a presentation organized by NOFA NH called ‘Small Equipment Demonstrations for Vegetable Farmers - Part II’. We were not involved in Part I, which was centered around larger equipment. When we first got there around 12:30, we met owner Chuck Cox, who showed us to the plot where we would be building a demo tunnel. We got to work right away setting up a 12' x 28' caterpillar. By 3:30, we had it ready to show.

We then set up the bender demo area with a picnic table we had brought from Maine. Since the weather was iffy, we assembled the hand tools and seeders on a hay wagon, so that we could quickly bring them in the barn in the case of a torrential downpour.

Around 4:30, people started showing up. There were probably around 35-40 diehard attendees with and without umbrellas. As they made their way in, we had kind of a free-for-all with the hand tools, as they got to try them out in a weedy patch of the field and express which were their personal favorites and why. A little after 5:00 Ray Conner, the Beginner Organic Farmer Program Director from NOFA NH welcomed everyone, and got the show started.

Chris went first, giving a brief overview of all the hand tools and seeders, with a promise to answer any specific questions after. This was great because she gave a very quick, comprehensive overview of the lines, what is available, and what the products’ individual strengths are.

Then Chuck gave his presentation, which started with some of his favorite hand tools, including a stirrup hoe, an old auto-feed jab planter, and a Planet Jr. seeder. He then moved on to some of his innovations, like his fencing cart, his row markers, garlic dibble, and his low cost solution for homemade Hotkaps. He finished up by demonstrating a horse-drawn spring tine weeder, which is used to remove small weeds in established crops. As he says, “Just don’t look back.”

After that, everyone assembled on the hill for the caterpillar tunnel demo. I started by bending a 6 ft hoop for low tunnels, then a hoop used to make high tunnels. We then moved over to the tunnel plot. I spoke about what we had done this afternoon to get the tunnel to the state that it was in. I enlisted some help from the crowd to insert and connect the last bow, cut the protruding ridge pole off, and then skin and lace the tunnel.



All the while, what started out as drizzle got more and more steady. By the end of the talk, we were pretty soggy.

Ray Conner from NOFA NH provides a little shelter.

After that Dorn Cox, who is a boardmember for the National Young Farmers Coalition, gave a brief invitation for everyone to check out their affiliated site, Farmhack.net for innovations in tool designs.

Finally, we invited everyone inside the tunnel and drew names for the raffle.

A complete gallery of our set up and talk is shown here (click on "Show info" in the upper right to view the captions that I've added for clarity).:



We intend to repeat this same talk on August 1^st at Alchemy Gardens in Shrewsbury, VT. The talk will tentatively be held from 4:00 to 6:00 and will be presented through a collaboration of NOFA VT and RAFFL (Rutland Area Farm and Food Link).

Hope to see you there!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager

The Broadturn Farm Project

I first met John Bliss and Stacy Brenner when I was researching the viability of the Paperpot Transplanter. While this product did not make it into our line (for logistical reasons), they are big proponents of it and have integrated its use throughout their overall planting strategy.

Their farm is heavily into agritourism and is just a little bit of everything. Quoted from their website: “Broadturn Farm is a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm located 10 miles from Portland, Maine that raises organic vegetables, cut flowers,  strawberries, a small amount of poultry, and turkey, as well as natural lamb and pork. We host weddings and events. The property is in agricultural conservation with the Scarborough Land Conservation Trust. Formerly called the Keith Meserve Farm, the land is one of the largest farm properties in the Greater Portland area. It has 100 acres of open land and about 330 wooded acres.” Along with the CSA and weddings, they also run a farm stand called Flora Bliss, wedding flowers and cut flower design for events, and have a farm camp in summer. Am I missing anything? Probably. They’ve got a lot going on.

The construction of caterpillar tunnels at Broadturn Farm was initiated due to a partnership involving offsite trialing of flower varieties for Johnny's Selected Seeds. I was asked to support by managing the construction of a caterpillar tunnel on their farm. I saw this as a unique opportunity to develop instructional videos for our Quick Hoops™ Bender line, so we decided to build one of each type –a fixed tunnel and a moveable, with the end goal of making these videos available for free download on our website. We still have some minor filming and a bunch of editing to do, but we hope to get these videos out to the public soon.

This was every bit a trial as any of our projects have been, as these tunnels were both much longer than those we had previously built. Extra length brought with it some unique challenges, including the need for more secure T-posts at the ends of the tunnels and a need for more hands to hold down the plastic when skinning the tunnel. I also took this opportunity to try out some design modifications, which included building the fixed tunnel on taller ground posts. This really changed the structure substantially in size, feel, and thermal performance, and instantly made it accessible with a small tractor. This was (as always) a great learning experience, and we were able to accomplish this with two days of pre-fabrication in the Johnny's trial farm shop, followed by three separate days of onsite construction.

Special thanks to the Broadturn Farm Crew, including owners Stacy Brenner, John Bliss, Emma, and Flora, and their great crew, Andrea, Maggie, Clint and Nick. Thanks to Johnny’s employees Jeff Young, Matt Giroux, Russel Prime, and Hillary Alger for their hard work in the construction of the tunnels. Thanks also to Angela DiMillo for her work behind the lens, and to Patti Lennon and Christina Hillier for their support on this project as well.

A complete gallery of our project is shown here (click on "Show info" in the upper right to view the captions that I've added for clarity).:



Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager

 

New! Online Tools & Supplies Catalog

Check it out! The 44 page online Tools & Supplies catalog recently uploaded to our site:

Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager

2012 NOFA NY Winter Conference

January 19th - 21st, Johnny's Selected Seeds attended, exhibited, sponsored, and presented at the 2012 NOFA NY Winter Conference. There was quite a turnout - over 1,400 farmers in attendance.

I co-presented with Anton Burkett of Early Morning Farm and Niechelle Wade of Sunny Hill Farm in an all-day intensive workshop entitled, "SEASON EXTENSION: Tunnels of All Shapes and Sizes".

My slide show was broken up into three parts, illustrating our trials, success, failures, and product launches associated with low tunnels, small high tunnels, and moveable tunnels (i.e.: the Quick Hoops Bender line and the supplies to support it), and it took almost three hours to present. I also did a hoopbending demonstration in one corner of the cafeteria.



Slide show presentation in one of the ballrooms.



Our demo set up. A low tunnel bender on one end and a high tunnel bender on the other.



I wanted this to be an interactive experience and people got right into it.
NY sales rep, Amber Flint, helps hold the table.



Beth Spaugh of Rehoboth Homestead in Peru, NY stepped up and said, "I want to see if I can do this."
She could, and the crowd applauded her efforts after she completed a hoop.

I wanted to be able to convey that information, because it was a lot to put together, so here are links to all the slides I used and their corresponding notes. Each bullet in the notes (for the most part) will correspond with and individual slide, and the slides are all in order. Following along should be pretty easy, except for the tunnel construction photos, which were mostly ad libbed.

Part 1 - Low Tunnels - Click here for notes.



Part 2 - Small High Tunnels - Click here for notes.



Part 3 - Moveable Tunnels - Click here for notes.

I hope all this is helpful. Your comments are most welcome, either way.

Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux

Tools & Supplies Manager



A Year Round Diversified CSA at Jericho Settlers' Farm

On January 18^th, 2012 we visited Jericho Settlers Farm in Jericho Center, VT (near Burlington) – a year-round diversified CSA farm. Mark Fasching and Christa Alexander were in the process of building a new high tunnel right next to their farm stand when we arrived.

This would be in addition to the seven that they already had standing and in production. Outside one of them, they had a couple rows of 4 ft Quick Hoops low tunnels that had smaller tunnels within them covering some overwintering scallions and kale. The inner cover was perforated plastic.

They took us in the first high tunnel that was in production, where they had Raccoon spinach and mesclun mix under two layers of Covertan row cover they had acquired from Rain Flo. They said they could get two cuts of the mesclun over the winter and that the germ was erratic because of moisture inconsistency when they irrigated. Usually the fall germ is good. Chris asked about the Bloomsdale (because it’s an open-pollinated variety) , and they said they were getting very high germ results with it both outside in the fields as well as in the tunnels and that it was a better germinator than hybrid varieties in similar situations. They said they always got a thick, consistent stand with Bloomsdale. They also mentioned that all their lettuce and greens were seeded with a Sutton Jr. seeder.

The second high tunnel – a 30 x 140 ft Ledgewood, had 1500 laying hens in it. They all ran to our end of the tunnel when we entered. Mark said that egg cleaning was their bottleneck and that they were only able to reach that number by the use of an automatic egg washing machine. Once they had that, it was game on. They rotate the hens around to a different high tunnel each season. In summer, they are pastured and roost in these mobile chicken coops. They then scrape out most of the litter and spread it for field crops. They “follow” the chickens with tomatoes, because they have a 90 day window for the manure to cure. By the time the fruits are maturing, they are past that window. He said the birds can easily pay for a house. We noticed the orange twine hanging from above. Mark said they use the smaller size orange bailing twine because it costs less than tomato twine to trellis their tomatoes. The twine that was there had been in use for three years already.

The third high tunnel had garlic overwintering that they were going to harvest in spring for bunching. They will also be trialing onion sets that will be planted in February for a spring crop.  

The fourth high tunnel had a self-driven commercial greens harvester in it. There is a great video of it being used here. They bought this second hand from some farmers that were selling off all their equipment. It was originally sold by Bernard Parker Marketing Limited, a UK company which now seems to be out of business. I believe the original manufacturer is the Italian company Ortomec, based on the looks of the product, which is a few years old now, but I am not certain.

Outside, there were numerous Quick Hoops stacked up against one of the other high tunnel’s end walls. They obviously have embraced low tunnel use in the Spring and/or Fall.

The fifth high tunnel had Bordeaux spinach, Tyee spinach, Bright Lights that were forced, scallions, beet greens, arugula, and mesclun.

The sixth that we entered was a 20 ft Quonset style (round) that had been converted to move on skids. Inside they had Tyee spinach overwintering under row cover. Their anchors for the tunnel were also inside the tunnel and consisted of earth augers and come-alongs.

We peaked briefly in the seventh tunnel and moved on to the barn.

We stopped in the tool room, where we discussed some operational difficulties they had with our four row seeder. I noted that the four row was a little finicky and liked a nicely prepared bed. I told them that a bed roller was in the works. We also discussed how to sharpen the Johnny’s Greens Harvesters. They said that it would work well at first, but it would get dull quickly. 

They took us into the egg cleaning room and fired up the egg washer for us.

This just cracked me up.

Behind that room was their original cold storage room with an air conditioner and Coolbot.

Next was the washroom, which was being used when we visited. Having outgrown the Coolbot room, they had recently added a commercial walk in cooler and loading dock.

They were especially proud of that space. They had everything set up on wheels to roll out from the washroom, into the cooler, and then into the delivery truck. Even their Grindstone Farm root washer was set up to roll wherever it was needed, which was accomplished by mounting it on a scaffolding base with casters.

Finally, we got a tour of the art gallery. As many farmers are doing these days, they’d added another point of interest at their farm, to serve as a second income source while increasing foot traffic for the farm stand. They would also sometimes distribute CSA shares inside the gallery, which would increase foot traffic for it. Clever.

Mark and Christa very graciously donated their time to show us around and we thank them for it. The complete slide show follows.

 

Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager