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