Setting Up a High Tunnel on the Homestead (Part 3 Vlog)

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We are very excited at Mountain Jewel to be underway on the construction of our 30'x48' high tunnel.

As many of you know we received a USDA grant to build a high tunnel on our land allowing us to expand our growing potential. We're stoked to push to boundaries of what is possible to grow here... ginger anyone?

This has been a long time in the making, and we started preparing the soil more than a year ago. We have seeded cover crops many times (alfalfa, ripper beans, mustard, buckwheat), ran our chicken tractor through here and have recently plowed it.

The holes have been dug and now it's time to start building! Almost ready to get growing! First we need to get the structure up though.

Some friendly neighbors hauled the steel components to our place which we are VERY grateful for.

We rented an auger to get the holes done in short order and are now ready for the next step of setting the sidewall posts. The sidewalls will also have venting sides and shade cloth so the tunnel can stay cooler in hot weather. The posts are 4" x 8' steel poles sunk in the ground that will support the bows that create the rounded tunnel shape for the plastic to rest on. The bows are screwed together and supported by bracing.

Last night I got the corner posts of one sidewall installed and set in rocks and pre mixed cement.

I'm not a fan of using cement, but this application warrants it. This way the high tunnel will withstand high wind loads and last for years. We had plenty of rocks show up from plowing and digging, so I stacked functions by de-rocking the soil and setting the posts using less cement.

Once the posts are set and plumb (a magnetic level makes this job much easier) I let them set up over night.

I double checked my work a while later and was happy to see they were both plumb. This morning I ran two string lines from the corner posts. One to keep all posts in a line and the other to keep the height consistent. The site isn't level, but as long as the posts are the same height the structure will go together smoothy. It does take a lot of finessing to get 9 posts at the same height set in a line spaced at 6'. This is totally worth it because the high tunnel will be here for many years to come and it's certainly worth building it well.

We're super happy to be underway and will post updates as we make progress. Once the sidewall and endwalls are up, we'll have a party and ask help to get the plastic stretched over the frame then it's time to get growing!

Thanks for tuning in.

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