Winter Tunnel: One Step Closer
Long time farm fans will know we’ve been working towards buying and building a new high tunnel with winter growing in mind. It’s been a process. Initially, we were waiting to see if we’d get funding through a USDA program called EQIP (Environment Quality Incentives Program) but that path seems unlikely with the goals of the current administration. We spent about a year in limbo on this before we decided that it wasn’t going to work out. Fun fact: we had actually put in our application for EQIP in December 2024.
We decided we just needed to go for it and secure our own financing through Compeer Financial. We know that even if the winter growing fails (we don’t think it will), that the tunnel would still be valuable for growing other summer crops like tomatoes and cucumbers. Then, we were met with long wait times for building and big cost increases. The whole project increased in cost by about 50% from its inception to when we finally decided to move forward.
Jump to just last week and we finally received the tunnel parts with the builder planning to begin construction in early June. I am SO excited for this and maybe a bit nervous too. It’s one of the bigger farm purchases we’ve ever made. The only thing more expensive than this tunnel is our vegetable wash & pack shed.
What will we grow in the winter tunnel?
We’ve been experimenting with winter growing for around 5 seasons now and we have a good idea of what could work and what probably won’t work. We plan to grow lettuce mix, radish, spinach, salad turnips, scallions & bok choy in the winter tunnel. With supplemental heat and normal to slightly below normal temperatures in winter we should be able to produce these crops all winter long!!
That’s really exciting for us. When you consider that we can pair these fresh winter crops with storage crops like beets, carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, shallots, cabbage & winter squash, we suddenly have a huge selection of fresh, local, sustainably grown veggies available even in the dead of Minnesota Winters!
Our goal is to make local foods easily accessible year round and this winter tunnel will be one giant step towards that goal. We can’t wait to start growing!
