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

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