Caterpillar Tunnels at Windflower Farm

January 24, 2011 - On the last day of our NOFA NY Winter Conference trip, John Dillon and I visited Jan & Ted Blomgren at Windlflower Farm in Valley Falls, NY – between the Hudson River and the Vermont border. They run a diversified farm that distributes produce and flowers through several CSAs in NY City.
http://www.localharvest.org/windflower-farm-M10244

My interest there was mainly their expertise in protected cropping systems, specifically the use of caterpillar tunnels.

What's a caterpillar tunnel? It's a high tunnel, generally intermediate in size between a low tunnel and greenhouse that is constructed in such a way (usually with rope overlacing) as to create a segmented appearance similar to a caterpillar. They are also called walk-in tunnels, because with most designs, you can walk in at any point along the tunnel.

A former advisor to Cornell Cooperative Extension, Ted co-authored the High Tunnels manual, which I referred to extensively when planning the construction of caterpillar tunnels at our research farm in Albion, ME in June, 2010. They have done some amazing work at Windflower Farm. Ted took us for a tour of the caterpillar tunnels. It was sunny, but -15F and the snow was deep. Since Ted was going to be giving a talk at the MOSES conference that included a segment on low tunnels, we brought him one of each of our Quick Hoops Benders and went through the bending procedures inside one of his greenhouses.

Our hosts then invited us in for coffee and cake before we headed off for our next stop - Pleasant Valley Farm.

You can view the complete gallery below.



Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager