We are bringing this oldie but goodie back from the archives. Below, it details how we construct our Caterpillar low tunnels. Since we recently began constructing some of our Spring low tunnels we made a 3 part video series on our Bare Mtn YouTube Channel of one being constructed. You can access these videos following this link.
Lately there have been a lot of questions floating around the blogosphere regarding how to construct a caterpillar low tunnel. We have been using this design that Farmer Tony perfected over the years and have found it to be quite robust and easy to use and low cost to construct.
Back in 2012 this design was featured in a Growing for Market article authored by Erin Benzakein of Floret after a visit to our Farm. The following presentation goes into further detail on how to construct this type of tunnel. Please do note that the materials for hoops in this presentation were plastic but metal conduit pipe works excellently in snow country where snow load is a concern.
We know that season extension is an important part of being a successful flower grower. We support the concept of the revival of locally owned farms raising locally grown flowers and we are providing this information as part of our paying it forward to the next generation of Flower Farmer….enjoy and “May the Crops Be with You!” (I know, its a sad off take on Star Wars!)
We also have realized that the section on anchoring the hoops and fabric/plastic needed a little visual help so we have added this brief You-Tube video.