Tomatoes in the High Tunnel

It’s raining today and anyone without a cover over their heads is wishing they had invested in a high tunnel. High tunnels are the latest craze in vegetable growing circles and you are no one if you don’t have a designer, steel framed behemoth sitting in the middle of your field. Of course, this is just a newer, sexier version of what we were doing 20 years ago, but who’s keeping tab?

Today I planted our first tomatoes while it was pouring rain. For some reason my dog thought this the most ludicrous thing he’d ever seen me do and insisted on being let inside to take a twelve hour nap. He’s still drying off from my insistence that he act like a dog.

The main problem with high tunnels is that the soil actually stays dry, so ironically I had to water these plants after I put them in. There’s always a caveat in farming.

I also took the added precaution of covering the tomatoes under a layer of row cover because I know in my heart of hearts it will freeze again sometime in the next two weeks. This is what we have to do in central Pennsylvania to get early tomatoes.