Winter High Tunnel Production at Pleasant Valley Farm

On January 24th, John Dillon and I stopped at Pleasant Valley Farm in Argyle, NY and visited with Paul and Sandy Arnold. We were given a tour of their beautiful farm and also graciously invited for lunch. Paul and Sandy are on the leading edge of farming technology and they regularly speak at conferences with venues such as NOFA NY, NOFA VT, and MOSES. They own three Rimol houses and they were recently featured on Rimol's site under their "Customer Spotlight" section. It is a very informative write up of their operation. You can view that article here:
http://www.rimolgreenhouses.com/pleasantvalley.php

When we got there, Paul gave us a tour of their two completely unheated 144 foot long Nor'Easter high tunnels which they were currently doing a winter greens production in. They have a Davis weather station that they use to monitor the tunnel temperatures from their kitchen, so they can manage floating row cover removal and replacement for optimum light exposure. They were also doing a trial of nine different spinach varieties to determine the best performer for winter production.

After lunch, they showed us the rest of the farm, which started with the packing shed. On one end of the shed, they have a spot for offloading their harvest cart right into a barrel washer. They evidently have the first production model barrel washer from Grindstone Farm. In their main washroom that is only used in summer, they have a washing tank with an air agitation system, powered by a jacuzzi air pump, and stainless packing tables on two sides. The barrel washer also feeds into this room. Nice setup. Other parts of the packing shed included a controlled cold storage area, a root cellar, a tool shed, and their winter washroom / packing area.

The packing shed led into their Rimol 30' x 60' Matterhorn seedstarting house. They were running preheated water through swimming pool solar panels as a radiant heat source for their seed starting benches and they were also using rigid Winstrip seedling trays extensively.

The last stop was their new pole barn at the lower end of the property. The had of course much of their farm equipment and tractors here, but also had one enclosed garage like area for extra cold storage.

You can view the complete gallery here:



There are also a great many photos of their operation on their facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pleasant-Valley-Farm/242214617771


Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux
Tools & Supplies Manager