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

 

2011 Young Farmers Conference and Slow Tools Summit

On November 28th, I drove out to Tarrytown, NY to attend and present at one of the best conferences I have been privileged enough to be involved in - the Young Farmers Conference at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, NY. They define 'Young Farmers' as people who have been farming professionally for 1-10 years.

The mission of Stone Barns Center is to create a healthy and sustainable food system that benefits us all.  Located 25 miles north of Manhattan, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture is a 501(c)3 nonprofit institution.  We operate an 80-acre four-season farm and work to:

• Increase public awareness of healthy, seasonal and sustainable food.
• Train farmers in resilient, restorative farming techniques.
• Educate children about the sources of their food, and prepare them to steward the land that provides it.

I was scheduled to present at this event, and arrived a couple days ahead of time to set up a moveable caterpillar tunnel made with our new bender for my workshop. Jack Algiere, who is the Four Season Farm Manager for the Barns, was kind enough to provide me with the help of Zach Wolf, Stone Barns field foreman, and Josiah Venter, field apprentice. Together we got the job done over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday.

The conference ran Thursday and Friday. Our marketing manager, Patti Lennon and our commercial sales rep for NY, Amber Flint also came out on Wednesday to attend the conference. The first day, I went to a few seminars, like this one Jack did on greenhouse management and like a nervous mother, kept adding finishing touches at the tunnel. I was also asked to do a filmed interview, presumably for the "Voices of the Young Farmers Conference" clip that Stone Barns usually posts on their website. Mine was to be a single-question interview: "What are the top 3-5 season extension methods for young farmers to know about?" That was also nerve wracking, but I got through it. :)

On the second day, Eliot Coleman and I had a roundtable discussion just after breakfast with anyone who wanted to attend (we got about 50-60 takers) around Innovations in Tools. Eliot had a 30 minute slide show where he presented some of the ideas he has had over the years, including some that Johnny's has brought to market. I then petitioned the audience for suggestions as to what products we could bring to market that would help them do their job? We got several suggestions, that were mostly related to projects we were already working on, which just confirmed our own suspicions of those projects' viability. Each time someone would suggest something, we'd start grinning at each other before they were finished. Too funny.

Eliot's daughter, Clara Coleman (Divide Creek Farm), also attended. It was great to finally meet her and have a chance to talk. She is one of the nicest people I have ever met.

Later that morning, I attended a presentation by Ben Shute, who is involved with the National Coalition of Young Farmers and Farm Hack.

Ben spoke a little about his organizations and had us break into groups to brainstorm ideas around specific aspects of farming to come up with ideas for ways to improve the way they are done. This was a fun exercise. He also spoke about the launch of a new Farm Hack website which will be complete with forum software to categorize participants ideas and serve as a central depository for them as well as a resource for the future. This, I think, is a tremendous idea and I am very excited about it.

In the afternoon, it was time for my Caterpillar Tunnel Workshop, which Amber was nice enough to help me with. A group of about 30 attendees followed me out to the North field, where I spoke first about low tunnels, then small hoophouses and caterpillar tunnels, and then on to moveable tunnels. We bent some pipes on the bender I had mounted on a picnic table and went over just about every square inch of the tunnel, talking about its construction and operation and how it differed from a fixed tunnel. People were invited to come inside and at the end, we removed the clamps, released the plastic, and moved the tunnel up and down the rails. There was a lot of participation by the group and they had many questions. Overall, I think it went very well.

Prior to the conference, Eliot and I had organized a meeting scheduled for the Saturday after YFC at Stone Barns with several industry professionals to do something similar to what Ben Shute had in mind - get together and brainstorm new tool innovations. Eliot had been working with Barry Griffin, a mechanical engineering professor from Harvard on a project they call "Slow Tools". Stone Barns has even agreed to fund one of their projects - a simple battery powered light cultivating tractor. Eliot's agenda for the meeting read like this:

Ben Shute and some others were also invited, but were unfortunately unable to attend. Friday evening, we got together over dinner with a few folks who were already there, got to know each other better and of course, discussed tools.

On Saturday morning, we assembled at the Barns and started right in by introducing ourselves and suggesting two or three ideas of interest. We then began to talk about some of those ideas and eventually settled and spent a lot of time on the tractor project. Around noon, the Barns graciously set us up in a private dining room for lunch. We then got back together and stayed until after 5:00, talking about how to get these things done. One recurring them was the notion that often times ideas become public and then die right there. We all vowed to keep this thing going. To that end, Josh and Barry offered to set up a listserv to allow the group to stay on the same page and communicate efficiently.

First Inaugural Slow Tools Summit, 2011

That evening, we again went to dinner. Afterward, I ended up with the guys from Four Season Tools until after midnight, going over what they had accomplished over the past couple years and reviewing photos on Greg's laptop. They had a lot of savvy suggestions for me and I want to thank them for that.

I would like to thank the Stone Barns staff, particularly Fred Kirschenmann, Jill Eisenbarger, Erica Helms, Nena Johnson, Jack Algiere, Dan Barber, Zach Wolf and Josiah for their participation and cooperation in making the YFC and STS a success for us. Special thanks also to the Slow Tools Summit attendees that had to travel and make time in their busy schedules in order to make that a reality. I'm very excited about the direction this is all going and I am very much looking forward to our next meeting.

It was a long, groggy ride home on Sunday, but wow. What a week!

Here's the complete gallery:

Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager

Johnny's Winter Caterpillar Tunnel Structural Trial

Goal: To see if either caterpillar tunnel version (with, or without purlins) could withstand winter snowload.


Results: Were very interesting. We picked two of the four tunnels that were built in May, 2010, actually planted onions in them, and buttoned them up for the winter. Both tunnels were structurally the same, with a center ridge-pole made of chain link fence top-rail, but one of them also had purlins about three feet from either side of the ridge. These purlins in summer, were used to trellis vine crops, and carried that load quite well. They really stiffened up the whole structure. However, in summer, they tended to cause the plastic to collect rainwater. This made me think that the purlins would either make it so strong that it would better carry the snow load or they would catch more snow than the tunnel without purlins and cause a collapse. It looks like the latter is the case.

Summary and recommendations: It is important to note that we intentionally did not remove snow in this trial, as we were looking for structural failure in worst case conditions. Removal of snow even just next to the tunnel that failed probably would have prevented its failure, because the pressure bearing in on the sides (and therefore the plastic's weight felt on the top) would have been greatly reduced. If you intend to use a structure like this to overwinter crops in northern climates where snowfall is a concern, I would recommend a maximum of four foot bow spacing during construction, not using side purlins in winter tunnels because they catch snow, and of course the removal of snow whenever possible from the sides and top of the tunnel. It would also be prudent to shore up the bows internally with notched two-by-fours placed vertically under every other bow as a means of additional snowload insurance and peace of mind.
 The 26-page illustrated manual for the bender used to make these tunnels and an MS Excel cost calculator spreadsheet may be downloaded on the bender's product page here.

You can view the complete gallery below.




Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager