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Season Extension and Low Tunnels
140 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, we will be taking a closer look at options to help you extend your growing season both in the fall and in the spring. Whether you're growing flowers, vegetables, herbs, or fruits, you'll want to know how to protect them from frost, pests, and diseases. We'll share some information on using season extenders such ground covers and low tunnels to create a cozy microclimate for your plants, and how to choose the best materials and methods for your garden and fields.
Greenhouses, High Tunnels, & Low Tunnels
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture. Hi, guys. Hello. Hello. That was aggressive. Sorry, I'm so chipper because we're still punchy this week. I'm always punchy, let's be honest. Everyone's like, what's new?
What is Season Extension in Horticulture?
00:00:30
Speaker
No, I'm just excited because we're talking about season extension and this is one of my favorite top. Season extension, second best kind of extension after cooperative extension. After Boyle County extension.
00:00:50
Speaker
But yes, we're talking about how if you if you're not done with your garden season, whether that be veggies or flowers or whatever it is, you ain't done yet. Before we before we jump into that, are you? I got a question for you all. So, you know, I'm a bit of a devil's advocate sometimes or no skeptic, I'd say a skeptic.
Challenges of Fall Season
00:01:11
Speaker
So fall as a season.
00:01:15
Speaker
It it gets its flowers all the time. People love fall. They're like, oh, it's winter weather. Oh, color. All colors. Whatever. The guy wearing an orange shirt. I don't look great in fall colors. I'm just a question. But anyway, what? Well, yeah, I can see that. I'm a true. You opened that door. I'm just going to say, yeah, I'll walk right through it. So what? What are some things that suck about fall? Hmm.
00:01:46
Speaker
You know what I hate? I hate that it is cold in the beginning of the day, and then by freaking 11 o'clock, you're sweating your butt off in that cute sweater that you put on because you were freezing cold in the morning. That's what I hate there. I said it. That is, I think, a big downside of fall, the variability throughout the day.
00:02:07
Speaker
I hate that the time changes. I hate like, just leave it. Leave it to wait. It's fine. Who cares if it's dark in the morning. It's like a fall back. Like we get an extra of the two times. That's not false fault. That is human civilization. It's associated with the season. You go to work and it's dark and you get done from work and it's dark. That's the worst drawback to that time period.
00:02:33
Speaker
I think in Kentucky, it's, and in this region, it's also just like so variable how long fall can actually feel like, that it's like, it's not even a real, there is no definitive start. Is it two weeks or two months? Exactly. I'm a leaf looker and there's no predicting fall leaf color as far as timing goes. Some years we have more color than others. Yes, that's fine. But predicting when that may even be anymore is, I've given up.
00:03:01
Speaker
I have given up. I'm just going to the northeast this year where the predictability is a bit less variable. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say there is nothing wrong with fall and that falls totally exists and is real in the state of Kentucky having come from Florida where there's two seasons, summer and Christmas day.
Appreciating Seasonal Changes
00:03:21
Speaker
Make a good point. You have leaves that change, it gets cool,
00:03:26
Speaker
Oh, it's glorious. Josh, you have a little pumpkin spice latte on your shirt there. We do not make a list of all the things we love about fall, but then we would just gush endlessly. Yeah, I feel like fall is easy to love. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I love Instagram. You know, make this easy for me. Go with the flow. I just, you know, let my feelings happen. I try not to fight them. No, stop that. Gross. Fight feelings.
00:03:52
Speaker
I feel like over time I've just gained an appreciation for spring and I think even more so my appreciation for summer has increased just because I used to hate it.
00:04:05
Speaker
Right. And now I'm just sort of dislike it. Yeah. Love where you're at. Yeah. I think, I think I appreciate fall for different reasons. I think I appreciate fall not because of like the weather or anything, but because it's a signal that my, I'm about to slow down and then it's like, it's okay to slow down. There's less light in the day.
00:04:27
Speaker
which which does suck especially when like us you know it's you're going to work and it's dark and you come home and it's dark and there's nothing to do but there's also like there's nothing to do you know what i mean like there's the other night i get the past two nights uh you know it's been getting dark like dark dark by 8 30 and i have been in bed before 10 at 10 p.m for like two days straight and it has
00:04:49
Speaker
Game changer. I mean, just like an extra hour game changer for me. And, uh, in the summer when it's non-30 out and it's still daylight and you can't go to bed. Yeah. I mean, I do, I go to bed when it's always, it always has been.
00:05:06
Speaker
I love that wind down. I love the weather change. I mean, it's, I love seasonality. I've said that before in the podcast. I love the four seasons. I like all the transition. Just when you get bored of something, Kentucky's going to throw something different at you one way or another. It could be a flood. It could be a tornado. It could be whatever it may bring that day. It could be just some beautiful, some beautiful sugar maples changing in the fall. Nothing better. I love to hit the roads and just, you know, leaf looking. Yes, I will own that. I leaf look.
00:05:34
Speaker
And I may even get a PSL, a pumpkin spice latte while I'm leaving the PSL. It may put me in the more basic category of the pH scale, but I don't care. Fun fact, when Ray gets pumpkin spice lattes, he sends me pictures of them in the morning. I do. I'm like... You do one now? Do that again?
00:05:50
Speaker
When Ray gets his pumpkin spice lattes, he sends me a picture of them in the morning and it usually has some sort of hashtag basic on it or something. Is it just to Alexis? Yes. That is the cutest thing I've ever heard. Then you send me your custom flat lot drink. You send me some custom mix that I try and undercover love, but I'll never tell you that I love your mixes. I send him, I like my Christmas one is
00:06:18
Speaker
The, oh crap, it's the toffee. It's a toffee one. And I sent him that picture when I get one for Christmas time. So. This is very cute. This is very heartwarming for me. It's a cute little conversation. Yeah, I feel like you're so basic. I'm about to break it. It's about to be boot season. I do love me some boots. Yeah.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's something I'm, you know, I'm over the kind of warm weather clothes. I like hoodie weather, you know, hoodie weather. Yeah, I love the fact that hoodies are there. Some people want to see that summer growing season spirit just go on forever into fall.
High Tunnels in Kentucky
00:06:59
Speaker
That productive, productive season. Some people call them some people call them season extenders.
00:07:09
Speaker
Is there a difference? In Kentucky and in the region and across the country too, but I would say Kentucky as far as per capita is the NRCS equip high tunnel capital of the United States. What up? In the world. We have had so many high tunnels, these big structures, these are unheated, passively heated greenhouses.
00:07:30
Speaker
that just trap sunlight and keep the wind and rain and everything else out. We've seen those go up like crazy. And I remember back when I used to work at the Horticulture Research Farm, this would have been a little over 10 years ago.
00:07:46
Speaker
And that was kind of the beginning of this period of these things going up. And so when I was working out there and harvesting vegetables and weighing them for all the research projects and stuff, I'd have people come out and ask me about these high tunnel structures and say, oh, we just got this NRCS money. We're looking to do this. And I would give them a little spiel about how we would grow vegetables in the high tunnels and some of the things they needed to think about, et cetera.
00:08:09
Speaker
Season extension in general, it's not a new thing. It's something that's been around in one way or another for a really long time.
00:08:18
Speaker
It may be something as simple as a variety. You know, we talked about those before. It may be a variety that matures earlier. That's also, or matures later. Yeah. That's also a form of a season extension. So it's not necessarily kind of the bricks and mortar behind the thing. So yeah, most people have been involved in it one way or another. I think it's come to the point where some people associate season extension with high tunnels. And we will probably do a high tunnel episode
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah. Our series of episodes maybe later just because they're the need and the interest is there. But for this one I thought and y'all let me know if you want to go along with this. I thought maybe we could just talk about the season extension concept and maybe the lower tech simpler reasons or approaches to how we might be able to do
Why Extend the Growing Season?
00:09:05
Speaker
it. But starting with
00:09:07
Speaker
Why? Why on earth, as we talked about the transition of fall to winter, it's a time to chill. Why on earth would you do this to yourself? I feel personally targeted every time. I would say as somebody who likes to joke and kind of
00:09:29
Speaker
dump on season extension as being like painful or extending the time of great effort. Really, I think one of the things that makes it make a lot of sense, especially where we are and especially in the fall, is that a lot of times we just kind of get a day or two of weather that would terminate the season otherwise. But if you can just slide through that, you get another
00:09:57
Speaker
couple to several weeks of good weather. Basically, it's a way to end the season in a nice- Smooth transition. Yeah, smooth transition rather than just abruptly against your plans. You're willing. Yeah. Roughly that time around here might be mid to late October, that that normal defining frost and- Killing frost. Yes, et cetera would happen.
00:10:25
Speaker
In reality with season extension, even with just basic season extension, we can be looking in, you know, harvesting into November, sometimes even into December, depending on what you're doing. Right. When I talked to my commercial producers and it kind of dawned on me, I guess I was working several years ago in a food-based program for school systems that farm to school.
00:10:46
Speaker
program and seasonality of availability was a real big issue for schools because they're like, listen, it's not worth us changing our protocols and our methods of preparation of locally grown food stuff. And then having to switch back and forth, back and forth, you know, between, uh, commercially produced, purchased, yeah. This caffeine and tea I've doubled up on. It is real.
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah it is i'm writing a fine line here between fun and fundamentally bro. I'm so like chef here for a burger and it's only gonna be worse because i am on the parabolic her right now i'm still going up so.
00:11:31
Speaker
You guys be prepared but yes school systems had a big issue with the seasonality of produce and I got it. It kind of hit home to me. And so that's one of the things I think Kentucky is still trying to get a handle on is having produce available.
00:11:46
Speaker
for longer periods of time throughout the year. And that's a big deal because that's customer retention. That's getting new customers. That's getting commercial customers that need year round availability. So to me, it's the, that's the purest form of season extension is to increase the longevity of the availability. So yeah. And with that, your workers. So if you're trying to keep your workers, you know, keep good workers, if they can, you know, work the entire year.
00:12:14
Speaker
In some way, you can keep on that good farm manager. Yeah, you can't keep on everybody for most operations, but if you're one good person makes a huge difference. If you can keep them on and keep paying them and have things for them to do under that season extension, my reason may surprise you all.
00:12:35
Speaker
So I like season extension as someone with a high tunnel because I actually, I mean, I'm doing a lot in the wintertime, but I'm not harvesting in the wintertime and I'm not really selling in the wintertime. I'm preparing. I'm still getting rest, but I like to see things grow.
00:12:52
Speaker
That is fundamentally a part of me, I think, at this point, and having something to nurture and watch it and see how it's doing and something to take care of. I have no kids. Can you tell? I think what you're sharing is really beautiful. I appreciate you sharing it.
00:13:10
Speaker
So for me, I have found that winter growing and a high tunnel makes it easier for me. And we're going to talk about low tunnels on here. I've done low tunnels for several years, which are great and were a great transition for me. And I still do low tunnels even with my high one, but it's a lot easier to walk around in your high tunnel. But it brings me joy and I can sit out there with my baby plants
00:13:32
Speaker
and get my hands a little dirty and get some good microbes going. There's a lot of, I think mentally when everything is gray and seasonal depression can become real, that has been a great outlet for me. Then I get the perk of having some earlier blooms and seeing pretty things even when it's March and it's gross. I think that the season extension thing, it's important that we
00:14:00
Speaker
that we frame the conversation right so that it's not imagine a ripe red tomato on Christmas day. Yeah. There are limitations. You can do it. If you want energy costs and other things, if you want to deal with that, you can in some way end a supplemental lighting and all that kind of stuff. Season extension fundamentally is literally what the name says, where you're just extending and you're kind of pushing the limits
00:14:29
Speaker
on both the front end and back end of the season and you push them enough and they eventually converge in meat. But in general, it's... And I think one thing that for me that on more of a home garden scale, there's something really magical about being able to go out and pull some kale off of a plant and make a fresh kale salad or saute some of that.
00:14:52
Speaker
in late November.
Growing Cold-Adapted Crops
00:14:54
Speaker
The quality, how about that, Brad? Yeah, the quality, especially after a frost, you get that. That's another thing too, I just wanted to mention is that when we're talking about season extension, a lot of times it's taking things that are already adept at doing well when it's cold out and just giving them a little bit of help rather than trying to take the pepper plant that's going to
00:15:19
Speaker
lose its mind, but the first time it gets, yeah, exactly. It's every time it hits 40. These things, the photo period, temperature is one thing, but photo period's another. And if you're fighting both of those things, then.
00:15:29
Speaker
uh, economically, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Now, if you're a homeowner and it's just a hobby, then so be it, have at it. But economically, I mean, there's a breaking point to where, you know, providing that supplemental life that you mentioned, bread, especially with energy costs now just doesn't make sense. So I love the fact that you mentioned like working with things that are already good during that time period, you're just providing a little extra and being realistic about what you can and cannot do. And I mean, uh, that's one of the things about,
00:15:57
Speaker
high tunnels that is interesting the way that people are actually using those is that so many times I'll see a crop out there and you know I guess the range is I said well it'll add 7 to 21 days on the back end of front end of a growing period you know given the weather conditions in your area but so many times you know producers start backing that date up that they're producing more and more and more and then a cold snap comes and I see supplemental heat in so many of those high tunnels where the true spirit of the high tunnel is it's
00:16:26
Speaker
passively heated, you know, just by the structure itself. So it's interesting the way people are adapting and using those, but sometimes, you know, they roll the dice
Techniques for Season Extension
00:16:34
Speaker
a little bit hard and, and they don't want to lose a crop. So, you know, things like supplemental heat creep in there. So it's interesting the way people adapt to, to the situation of season extension. But I love the fact that sometimes you can get it on, you know, early in the season, sometimes you can add a little time late in the season. So yeah, it's great. So I think when you strip it down to its most basic,
00:16:55
Speaker
the most basic functions of the techniques that we apply. It's about in some way getting a cover of some sort over top of a crop. It's about trying to trap solar energy and or thermal energy coming from the soil in and around the plant mass. It's about keeping frost and wind and freezing rain and other things off of the crop.
00:17:20
Speaker
There's a lot of different ways we can do that, right? I mean, you could go out and hold an umbrella over it, you know, and have your one kale plant or your one broccoli plant make it all the way through the winter if you're... Original or commercial situation that we were in the original like big wave that really changed horticulture and agriculture in the US.
00:17:37
Speaker
Primarily horticulture crops is just a plastic culture using plastic and raised beds. That's the purest form of the season extension and I think we overlook that a lot. You're talking about plastic on the soil surface. The plant is doing the ground.
00:17:55
Speaker
But I know a lot of listeners may have never seen like commercial plastic culture operations, but if you look at these big long rows, typically the most predominant color is black, just lots of black rows of plastic. I mean, that's the original season extension technique because yeah, we're trying to protect against wind.
00:18:12
Speaker
and cold weather, adverse weather conditions. But it's also this concept of growing a crop in optimal conditions to get a viable crop as quickly as possible.
Impact of Plasticulture
00:18:22
Speaker
That's the original season extension wave that hit the country was plasticulture. So yeah, it's a good lead in Brett that you mentioned. So there's different ways to look at it. Now it seems like we think about protected agriculture or protected horticulture.
00:18:38
Speaker
with the row covers and stuff, which that's pretty exciting. The technology has gotten really good there. And I know you guys are going to talk about that, but a lot of different ways to look at season extension.
00:18:48
Speaker
You have some other other ways that come to mind, because I think of cold frames as another example, or even just just planting things on a certain side of your house or a certain side of your root cellar as this like... Those have been going on how long, Brad? Very long time, at least since hobbits were real. Oh, yes. They're still real, Brad. Come on now. That's since they started being real.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, they're real now. Cold frames, I mean, using manure as a passive heat source to change the degree five degrees. I mean, that's one of the original ways that people extended the season. Kind of like a big deep picture frame laid on the soil surface. It hinges up the lid, can hinge open. You can bring it open to vent it. You can actually get. It's like a little mini greenhouse. Yeah.
00:19:37
Speaker
And if you even go farther back, you know, that manure source used to be like in northern climates, a very important component of that. I don't see that used practically much anymore, but they would put some compostable material in there because when things compost, it gives off heat. Well, that would heat the code frame in very.
00:19:53
Speaker
cold conditions, depending on how you had the thing insulated. So these northern climates, they would grow things way out of the normal season, just with a compostable material layered underneath the soil and the crop to be grown because they would take advantage of that compost heat. And it was pretty amazing. There's some great examples in different areas of people. And that used to be a more common practice, I think.
00:20:16
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there I can't remember his name, but there was a guy we learned about when I was in school who had, I mean, this is up in either like Detroit or Milwaukee or something like that. A former basketball player.
00:20:29
Speaker
Will Allen. Yeah. He had done like he did extensive composting because he had worked out to get a lot of plant waste from grocery stores and was doing a lot of composting, was using that kind of thermal heat buildup to push the season as well. So, yeah, still using anything to trap the heat over top or anything. Yeah. So, yeah, Polly, if I remember right, it was Polly tunnels, but he had the compost active in there.
00:20:57
Speaker
That's growing power. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I couldn't remember the name of him or his organization. Just what he was doing. Yeah, I remember the home gardens. I used to see a lot of glass bell jars over things. I don't see that as much anymore. But when glass technology way back when it got cheap and very effective. And still at flea markets, I look for these bell jars that these that were designed. They're called
00:21:22
Speaker
Kloikas or I don't know how to pronounce it. That's not right, but it's a strange word. I think Kloikas. I think Kloi. Kloi. No, they're Kloi. Kloiches? Yeah. Kloika. Kloika is like the slit, like on a reptile where the like genitals and Kloika. Same with birds, too. Yeah. We veered off. I do not know how to pronounce Kloish. I call them Kloish. You know, I use...
00:21:49
Speaker
But every once in a while we get a late frost or for people who will put their tomatoes in a little bit too early because we'll get those 75 degree days in April, 80 degree days in April and people want to put their tomatoes in. Getting hot in here.
00:22:04
Speaker
So put your demands on the ground. Don't do it until I'm at least in Kentucky. So we have those times when late stuff can happen and I do tell people I'm like, you got any milk jugs? You got any kitty litter jugs? And the purpose, they don't even necessarily have to be clear, is to trap that thermal mass. And I'll give you an example of some
00:22:29
Speaker
We had, I think it was five years ago, we had a frost after Derby Day, which we always say in central Kentucky area, you usually can plant after Derby Day. Well, this was after Derby Day and we were getting a frost. I was actually on time for the first time in forever, getting my- First Saturday in May for this. It should be your first clue something bad is going to happen. Exactly. They really should have. I was on schedule.
00:22:54
Speaker
So I got my warm season crops were already in the ground and so and it was gonna be a, you know, 35 degrees and they would have taken out my stuff. And so what I ended up doing is I had a bunch of fabric row cover and if you're not familiar with
00:23:10
Speaker
Like a fabric row cover it's also called remade or spun bond bond Agra bond and it's kind of like it's kind of like a cheesecloth if you're not familiar with that just kind of imagine a cheesecloth air can move in and out but it traps and Usually depending on the weight of it can get you about three degrees three to five degrees
00:23:30
Speaker
And it comes in different whites, doesn't it Alexis? Yeah, it can be some people use it just for excluding pests. And so really they're, they're using the lightest possible, which might only be one degree, but I think it'll get you up to five, which always sounds crazy. Like when I tell somebody like, put that on, it'll get you three to five degrees. But when like that, it really is that simple, like three degrees lower could kill the plant. And it works.
00:23:54
Speaker
for some crops better than others. It's just saved our strawberry plantings in Central Kentucky where I'm an agent. It's saved because we had some freezes, warmups, and then freezes again, and that floating row cover does just that. It doesn't need external support, but it's saved our strawberry crop because of that three to five degrees. I mean, two degrees would have saved the crop.
00:24:16
Speaker
And so that was a very big deal for this producer. And there were so many temperature variations this past spring, they just got sick of and said, finally, we're not going to because it takes labor to remove that. And it was a fairly large scale production planning. And but they they did that twice. They pulled it over, pulled it back, pulled it over, pulled it back. And it saved their crop. And it was amazing because there were some that was not covered and they lost that crop. But, you know, it was a strategic move. But yeah, it made a huge difference. And that's just I guess the
00:24:44
Speaker
Overall term is what floating row covers? Yeah, I think I think one of the things about season extension that sometimes gets We focus on and I think it is an important part of it We focus on that ambient temperature increase in other words the average temperature under there's three degrees warmer But another part of it is if there is wind when it is cold That time of year is a very dry time of year and the wind chill effect
00:25:12
Speaker
If you can get the plant out of the wind or shield it from the wind, there's not a biting, cold, dry wind blowing across the bottom of those leaves, pulling some moisture out of the leaves. That is as important. So basically, if it's cold, you get an advantage from any sort of covering.
00:25:35
Speaker
If it is cold and windy, the advantage of that covering is multiplied times a whole lot. And around here, especially with these crazy weather events, it's usually there is this really crazy wind blowing polar vortex kind of vibe happening. With all of these, the technology we're talking about, floating row covers, low tunnels, high tunnels. What makes this challenging for season extension is just the sheer variability, the highs and the lows and how big of a difference it is between the two.
00:26:02
Speaker
Just really adds challenge to all these scenarios that we're talking about today. I don't like this Have you ever had any panic scenarios where you have a high tunnel and then all of a sudden I mean you've got your sweater on and your boots and it's late September and you're gonna run out and then it all of a sudden hits 85 90 degrees on a
00:26:19
Speaker
September day in Kentucky. I mean, you ever having panics over that? You just know what the temperature is going to do inside. I have automatic sides on mine that go by temperature because of that reason. But when I was working at UK, on the weekends, I would open and close the tunnels on the south farm. And so I might be watering and it's cold. And this is the middle of the winter and they had winter crops in there.
00:26:47
Speaker
It's cold, I'm watering at the greenhouse, the sun comes out and I have to stop everything I'm doing and run to the farm. By the time I would get there, the tunnel could be 85 degrees, which is way too hot for kales and carrots. This is when it's ambient like 30 degrees outside. Yeah, it's like 30 degrees outside and I'd have to crack those open and get them vented. If the clouds come over, then it starts getting cold again. A lot of management.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's a lot of major. That's why I got automatic sides, but where I've done low tunnels. So for those of you who are like, what are low tunnels? So low tunnels or caterpillar tunnels, I hear those use interchangeably, but they are technically different and caterpillar. I don't know. Does anybody know that? I always get them backwards. Which one is which?
00:27:38
Speaker
one of them you can stand in
Low Tunnels as an Alternative
00:27:41
Speaker
but it is like a not a permanent structure like a high tunnel is a permanent large structure these are something that would cover maybe one or two rows and you can stand in them and it is only up typically for a season and then there are the other one is something short so it might be only waist high
00:27:58
Speaker
Three to four feet for three to four feet high. It's usually only covering one row or like a, you know, a three foot wide bed or a four foot wide bed kind of max. Uh, and then there's, but they are similar in the way that they are hoops and there is plastic stretched over them. So I use the ones that are short, uh, and I have for several years that are about waist high. They cover a four foot bed.
00:28:22
Speaker
And those ones are harder material or uh, plastic, poly material, poly plastic, poly. Yeah, it's plastic. It's plastic. And then when it gets really cold, I have fabric that goes on the plants from under underneath those. So those honestly, like Brett said are most it's really mostly for wind, uh, because I can, I can get away with just fabric because I'm growing crops that are.
00:28:46
Speaker
appreciate cold. A lot of them need that cold. They need what's called vernalization to actually germinate it all. And so I'm just trying to get them a little bit earlier, but I'm trying to protect them from that wind. And so I do that with poly. So those I actually go out and because these crops are less sensitive and they're usually pretty low to the ground, they're getting a lot of thermal heat just from that top
00:29:09
Speaker
inch of soil, I will vent them every day unless it's 10 degrees or below, I will vent them at pretty much every day.
00:29:21
Speaker
I will—it's really jacked up the way—my system is I just have some cinder blocks on each side and I will like pull it up—pull up the side like a curtain and prop it up on a cinder block just so nothing gets fried. But I have missed it and—or they have fallen down because it's been super windy and they fell off the cinder blocks. I didn't secure it very well.
00:29:43
Speaker
And I come back and my snap jackets are fried, you know, because it got so hot. I know there's two different styles, slitted and punched. Have you used those? I have not. Usually I try to reuse my poly more than one year just from a sustainability standpoint. If I can reuse it, I will.
00:30:01
Speaker
So in my brain, the slitted or the punch would not hold up as well because it's already- Josh, are you familiar with those at all down south as far as have you? Do you have any experience? I don't have much experience, but I've seen producers that swear by one or the other depending on which crop.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah, my experience down in Georgia was just primarily high tunnels. I mean, we just had high tunnels, that's what we rocked. And, you know, we pulled the sides sometimes, but freezing temperatures were rare, like it was kind of more, yeah, easier to go for four seasons.
00:30:35
Speaker
So that pulling up the sides is pretty important because I imagine it can get really hot really quick if they're not ventilated at all. The smaller the area, the faster it heats up and the faster it cools off. That's one of the reasons why people like high tunnels. The larger thermal mass gives you a little bit more time. Yeah, those low time. I really fried my snap track because I came back and they were just like, meh.
00:31:00
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure it didn't take long either, did it? Cause you were probably kind of trying to get back to them. Yeah. Still missed it. Yeah. So, but low tunnels are one, I'm going to go with low tunnels as far as those four foot ones I'm talking about. So for the purpose of this, and if anybody's out there, they're screaming at me saying low tunnels are actually the big tall ones. Whatever the purpose right now. I actually heard someone propose that we refer to the small ones as low tunnels, the middle ones as meso tunnels and the big ones as high tunnels. And I was like,
00:31:28
Speaker
That would be helpful and clarify things. I think you're right the way that you're referring to it though. Yeah, I think the caterpillar tunnels are the ones that are like you can walk in.
00:31:40
Speaker
because they look like caterpillars, like they're the way that's stretched out over the hoops. But anyways, so the low tunnels, I suggest those to people who are kind of in the middle. And so, you know, you may be too small scale for, you know, something that you can walk in or, you know, funds just aren't available, which was, you know, the number of reasons, maybe you live in, you know, a subdivision or an area where something like that isn't allowed, that would be a permanent structure.
00:32:10
Speaker
So you need something but you're wanting to do a little bit larger scale than just a cold frame. Low tunnels are great. So you can get pretty much everything you need at your local Lowe's Home Depot Ace Hardware.
00:32:24
Speaker
And you can, I mean, you can make it happen. It's not the hoops come like they're, I have seen hoops for low tunnels made out of everything. Sometimes they're, you know, purchased for that. Strictly that they've been designed for that purpose, poly or metal, but people make them. I mean, yeah. Yeah.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, electrical conduit. If you're going to, if you think this is something that you're going to use over and over, which is what I've used in there, it's definitely more expensive and it has gotten way more expensive.
Building Durable Low Tunnels
00:32:51
Speaker
Uh, but electrical conduit just bent into a hoop. You can buy a hoop bender, or I know people who have just found the right item to bend those hoops around. And you can kind of make like a jig. We did that at a very cash strapped school I worked at.
00:33:05
Speaker
Yeah, he's like a gun or something to heat him up or. Well, it was in New Mexico, so it was already hot. We weren't in the winter time, but yeah. Nice.
00:33:14
Speaker
Or I've seen a smaller scale that maybe is out of the wind more. So if you're doing backyard or just you have an area that's protected from the wind, first of all, jealous. But second of all, you can use just something cheap like PVC pipe that you can just kind of bend over and go over those three foot wide or four foot wide beds that you might have.
00:33:37
Speaker
I've seen people use the poly material they would have plastic on at one point in the year and then later on in the year they would have the lightweight fabric on for insects not necessarily for temperature modification at all but for insects and they never move their hoops and I thought that was interesting they
00:33:53
Speaker
They, they managed it kind of dual purpose and they use the same hoops. It was pretty cool. I've seen people now as well. So, uh, in, in the world I'm in, I, we use a lot of trellising, uh, for upright stems. And so the kind of typical thing to use is what's called Hortonova netting.
00:34:12
Speaker
It's a brand name. There's probably other brands, but that's the only one I've ever seen. And it's white plastic and it forms these like six inch by six inch squares. And it's netting that you would put horizontally across the bed for the stems to grow upright through.
00:34:27
Speaker
Hopefully that's visually understanding. And so some people have converted over into using concrete like wire mesh. And so it's the same six inch by six inch, but it's made out of metal and they're bending that so it stands up on its own. And they're actually using that and they're draping fabric over top of those using it almost like hoops. And usually the thought process is by the time the stems are tall enough to grow through that,
00:34:56
Speaker
you don't need the fabric anymore. So I've seen that where, you know, just one less step to cut out. And I think that that could be doable as well. Just like streamlining the process and modifying it, keeping the concepts in mind, but then modifying it locally to what fits their production. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I would say even maybe one step back down even more in the technology
00:35:21
Speaker
with sort of hoop-like structures is that we talked about the row cover as a means of increasing the coal tolerance or protection or whatever. Some of those crops, especially if you're gonna eat the leaf of the crop, you kinda wanna keep the fabric off of the leaf, because if it touches the leaf, the moisture can accumulate and cause a frost or burn or whatever. And so you can also use
00:35:51
Speaker
hoops that are just like a heavy gauge wire hoop just to give you a little bit of a structure. You put these the same way like a caterpillar style down the bed and the frost blanket can lay on top of it without touching the plant. It also makes it easier to remove the frost blanket periodically.
00:36:16
Speaker
Yeah, I would definitely recommend whatever you do, whether it's plastic or glass or fabric or whatever, keep it off of the plant. Even if you're not eating the plant leaf itself, if you're, especially if it's a young plant, you know, a lot of us are going with small plugs or seedlings or something like that. If you, if it's touching the plant, it'll freeze to it. And so definitely have some way to get that fabric or whatever from touching it. Uh, you know, glass and plastic will actually,
00:36:47
Speaker
It'll transmit heat. It's the air as well.
00:36:50
Speaker
protecting you. Right, your air is your little bubble that's formed around those plants. So yeah, but season extension can be as intense and weird or as simple as you want to make it. Like it's all simple, right? The concepts are all simple, but it doesn't have to be just a big high tunnel or, you know, breaking out the sledgehammer or, you know, something like that. But if you do want to do it, all of that is,
00:37:18
Speaker
acceptable and accessible. And there's some great videos online about how to build them and what you need, step by step, what you need. If you've had one ever go over it, listen, all right, I'm really proud of this. I think I've told the story before, I'm gonna tell it again. So this early spring, we had really bad winds come through in Central Kentucky.
00:37:42
Speaker
So we had a tornado in the county that I live in. Fortunately, it was kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Didn't really do any damage. No one was hurt, but we had like, and I have a little weather station. So we had seven, 73 was the high, my power winds where my high tunnel and low tunnels are located or right out in the middle where they can get hit with some good winds. And I had some low tunnels.
00:38:06
Speaker
And the one that was essentially protecting the other ones, they all stayed up. My metal conduit was twisted, completely twisted, but they were all still standing up. And I could have left them the rest of the winter, but they looked so bad. And I thought, well, if we get some random weird snow, they'll go down from the weight. But they did stand up to that. And I'm very proud of our building techniques.
00:38:33
Speaker
because they took on 73 mile per hour wind. If y'all need some help, I can get you there. You should post a picture of that in the Instagram teaser for this. I should. I do. I have one. What's the spacing on your ribs for that thing? My spacing, it's roughly five feet. In some cases, they might be more like six feet. What size can I do it? I'm using
00:39:01
Speaker
Quarter inch? Does that sound right? I think it's like number 10, whatever number 10 is. Metal conduit. Half inch maybe. Maybe it's half inch, yeah. I know it's a lot smaller than you would think it is. It worked great and there's some ratchet straps involved. That's galvanized conduit. Ratchet. Galvanized metal conduit.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, metal conduit is what we're using. But like I said, if you're in a protected area, like you're doing this beside your house and your house gets, you know, you don't get any of those strong North winds or, uh, ours comes from like the Northwest at our house. But if you're not getting any of those, then by all means, like.
00:39:42
Speaker
I tried getting away with PVC, it just wasn't going to work, but the structure itself will function if you can protect it from the wind. But just those floating row covers will make a huge difference. We all know now I have flowers, so coming from that world, what's called the cool flowers game, most of those can be grown with just that Agribon remake covering. You don't need anything special,
00:40:09
Speaker
Uh, I even made my own little wire hoops with some stuff I bought at, you know, Lowe's and Home Depot, just like a roll of gauge wire. And I cut it one day and sat in front of the TV and bent it. And it was the ugliest thing you will ever see, but it works fine. And it was like, I don't know, $15 for the roll. Like, and I made all, you know, 30 of them or something. So it's totally doable.
00:40:33
Speaker
Plan ahead because you do not want to be the person who needs fabric two days before the frost is coming. Ask me how I know. Make sure you have your equipment before the frost comes, so be ordering it now. Also, if it's at all possible to put stretch plastic or move plastic where you need to go before it gets really, really cold and windy, do that. Sometimes you can't help it.
00:41:02
Speaker
You know, something that we opened this episode by me being a hater on the season of fall. And so one thing I would say just on the season extension thing to be a little bit of a hater, and I've earned my stripes in doing this enough to say, is that when you do go low tech, which is great, it's accessible, it's affordable, it's all those things, in some cases, in many cases,
00:41:26
Speaker
for that variability like Ray pointed out, you have to kind of be the tech. You have to be the thermostat because if you don't have a thermostatically controlled ridge vent on a high tunnel or curtains,
00:41:38
Speaker
As Alexis said, if you leave it out there and it's hot, it's going to get fried. Or if you uncovered and it was warm all day, but now it's going to get cold tonight and you don't cover it back up. In other words, season extension, we think about... You're tied to the farm. Yes, you've got to harvest. More so. Yes, you have to harvest. You have to do those things if you're going to, but it's not like it in other ways, but in some ways,
00:42:02
Speaker
as far as schedule goes, it's like a dairy twice a day. That's how I've always thought of it, is it's like an animal enterprise. The intensity is up. Things will die. If you go away for some day in the summer, for most crops, you water them before you leave, yeah, they don't get harvested. Yeah, maybe you lose a little money, but you're going to come back and those plants are going to start growing again and providing the
Managing Season Extension Challenges
00:42:29
Speaker
next week.
00:42:29
Speaker
If I leave my tunnel open one night or my curtains stop working, which is like, I always have this fear, you will have sleepless nights. I will tell you that. But you forget to close that cold frame up. You forget to take those jugs off in the morning. Your plans will die, period. So maybe if it's one or two, it's not a big deal. But if you're going larger scale,
00:42:50
Speaker
It is, you know, you're losing a lot. So you will be tied to your farming winner. And maybe that's a good excuse. Listen, sometimes it's nice to be like, hey, I got to go. I got to go close my tunnel. And nobody's going to argue with you on that. And it's a great way to leave a party.
00:43:07
Speaker
Yeah. And there's there's a rhythmic nature to it that some people find really helpful and really good. But it is something that people don't. They think it is very different from growing seasonally outside in a number of ways. And one of them is you don't close the curtains on on summer like you don't have to go and do that. Sure we do. How else are we going to get the fall, Brett? That's true. We've got to close out summer as quickly as possible.
00:43:35
Speaker
So yeah, I just think that that is a reality of the, and we, we dealt with this because, you know, the university, when I was working at the university, the university gets a work break around Christmas time, you know, that you're all first for a number of days. Well, guess what? The tunnels are still there. Still have to be opened and closed and you have to figure out how that's going to work. And I'm not belly aching about that, but it just is.
00:43:57
Speaker
the element of season extension, I think that people overlook the most in terms of the bad side, the downside of it is yes, there is work, but it is slower paced because everything's growing more slowly, including the weeds. But that aspect of it's because you don't have to work out there all day, but you got to be there at 10 a.m. and you got to be there at 5 p.m. And that is something that if you if you don't can't account for that, you might
00:44:24
Speaker
look in a different direction. As far as home gardeners, if they're wanting to try some season extension and maybe have some of their coal crops or their root crops or things hang around longer, maybe look at some frost blankets and some simple little wire hoops to cover those. Yeah, absolutely. If you're in the home garden or large garden to commercial
00:44:47
Speaker
small commercial space, maybe those high tunnels and or Caterpillar tunnels could be something that you would look at. If you want to go full whole hog with the high tunnel by all means and add some
00:45:01
Speaker
some automation, some thermostatic controls and all that kind of stuff. Highly recommend. Worth every freaking kind of investment. I did it twice. I love it so much I did it again and I upgraded that one and they even have ones that have like wind control on them because that's the other thing with high tunnels is if you get a windstorm that randomly comes through with those, you know, those straight thunderstorms, you got to close it up even if it's hot. And they have ones that even have like wind sensors on them now and they'll close by themselves if a certain gust comes through. But yeah, highly recommend that.
00:45:31
Speaker
If one, one thing I know I've said it before, but I want to remind everybody, if you are doing any type of fabric to, whether you're doing it all winter time or you're doing it just to protect your strawberries on those couple cold nights.
Tips for Effective Soil Heat Trapping
00:45:47
Speaker
Whatever you're covering that plant with, whether it's a jug or some fabric, has to touch the ground on all sides because what you're trying to get there is your thermal mass coming out of the soil. The heat that's going to rise out of the soil is going to create that bubble around your plant. So if you're just throwing a sheet over, I love to see the sheets that are just like thrown over bushes.
00:46:10
Speaker
Got to cover your mass. And that sheet has to come all the way down and touch the ground so that you're going to trap that thermal mass. So there's your little tip for the day.
00:46:21
Speaker
Earlier when you said you exit you put stuff out early and then it got was gonna get cold. Oh, yeah You're in the panic. I imagined I imagined you making Tyler just like chug gallons of milk
00:46:41
Speaker
Literally, for like three days, I said, I think I'm going to throw up, at least once an hour. I think I'm going to throw up. I think I'm going to throw up. What we ended up doing, and I have a picture somewhere. I need to post it too. I went around and I had these little hoops. I wasn't doing low tunnels at the time. I had these little hoops. I had a bunch of cinder blocks available to me. I was also renting my plot at this time, so that added another layer of fun.
00:47:05
Speaker
And so we went around, we got all the fabric where it was up off and I was able to cover this small plot that I had. And we took lights and it's like those old shop lights with the light bulbs that get hot, you know, like you can't touch them. And I put them in the cinder blocks and so that they wouldn't catch the fabric on fire.
00:47:27
Speaker
And I had the extension cords running all over and I put these lights in. And so it looked like when you drove by at night, it looked like these little alien spaceships had landed. And it was hysterical looking, but it worked. But I will say.
00:47:44
Speaker
I planted my second succession and I planted it early. And so they were a week or two planted later than the early ones. And they bloomed faster than the early ones because the early ones were so stressed from the cold. So I was like, man, I could have just planted later and had them at the same time. So there's your other tip. A testament to the if you can only push certain things so far. So far.
00:48:13
Speaker
Light especially, yeah. That's the toughest thing is being realistic and matching the crop that first of all needs to be growing during that season or has the best shot with the light conditions, temperature conditions, wind conditions. But just folks being realistic about what they can and cannot do with what's available to them. Even with all of these techniques we're talking about, if you're growing something completely outside of the
00:48:36
Speaker
the parameters and it's economically just not possible to give it enough sunlight or artificial light. Don't try it, don't do it.
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah, not worth it. Anything else we can think of? We've got some good, if you're interested, we'll post in the show notes, there's a calendar that we have for Western, Central, Eastern Kentucky. If you're not in Kentucky, you can adjust based on your zone, any of these, but there's some dates on here.
00:49:08
Speaker
As far as kind of the earliest and latest that you can plant with some season extension and what that is that will do well And so we can post that in the show notes and just some tips for using slitted row cover or you know using Agribon anything along those lines and I feel like we don't say it every time we assume it but as a reminder we all do work for extension which means we serve the people of Kentucky and
00:49:35
Speaker
Uh, and it's not unusual for any of us to get, you know, Brett said he works with SARE, which is a national organization, CCD, you know, they work with Tennessee and people. So if you're not here and you want to shoot us an email, um, the email by the way is hortculturepodcastatl.uky.edu. We'll again post that, uh, in on our social media page, which is hort culture podcast on inch Instagram.
00:50:01
Speaker
But anyways you can all feel free to shoot us an email or you know give us a call if you've got some. Slide into our DMs. Slide into our DMs on Instagram. If you need some help actually I've got a grower I'm waiting on a call on to help her she's got a new high tunnel and so talking through some of that stuff with us that's what we're here for and we're happy to help you if you need more than what these resources we post in the show notes have. So anything else guys?
00:50:29
Speaker
leave us a review. Happy fall. Happy fall, if you're into that. You are the Joshua limit, let's focus on the negativity of it earlier. Or if you're a summer gal, I have lots of friends who are summer gals, summer guys. As I have said before in race or Brett, he's saying you think of this as time to rest with the trees. Okay. So even the trees. Day by day, I'm more of a summer gal than I used to be, but I'm also a fall, a fall fella.
00:50:59
Speaker
A fall fella and a summer gal. Love it. All right, everybody. Thank you again for joining us and catch up with us next week. But we hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us. Thank you for being here. Leave us a review. A good one. I want five stars. Please and thank you. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Yeah. See you guys.