Raised Bed Gardening in Our High Tunnel Greenhouse

Last Fall we got the high tunnel greenhouse up just in time for the snow to fall that night. It is a 72 foot by 30 foot gothic style equaling 2160 square feet of growing space. We signed up as part of the USDA NRCS grant program. They grant us so much money per square foot to a max of 2180 square feet or $6000. We then report what we grow and harvest along with what we use as fertilizers or chemicals over 5 years. We do not use chemicals and we only use manure as fertilizer so that's always easy. We're excited since this is the first time we get to plant IN the greenhouse. We had to plant in the area we used for two years prior so the soil is already nice and rich in nutrients. Plus there is a healthy helping of rabbit poop everywhere.

Well here is what we started with for this Spring. Photos are facing East, so left is North and right is South. First we had to take some scaffolding from the build and move it out of the way since we have nowhere to store it at the moment.

We also had to clean up various tools and rabbit stuff since we were using the snowless area to build rabbit cages.

Then the hubbie got the tiller out.

He started with the South side so we could get our buckets of lil plants in the ground. They were in these buckets all Winter long and most survived.

12 lil plum trees that were free from the base of two different plums. 3 or 4 Forsythia shrub babies. Pretty sure they're the Golden Forsythia. 1 Westcott self pollinating Apricot. We want them all the have a chance to grow before the deer decide they're tasty.

Tilled the North side.

First couple beds.

Most of the rest of the beds. Still some room behind me in this photo, but we have to finish cleaning it out. We wanted the bunnies out of the elements, but they are going outside tomorrow since it's going to be buggerly cold tonight.

Irrigation in and ready to go, now I just have to plant the beds. I wanted to wait until after the cold night tonight. Meanwhile some of my seed babies are snug in egg cartons for now. You can barely see the white or blue containers in the top left corner along the North bed that will hold maple trees soon. We have found that two of the trees we get sap from for maple syrup make REALLY good maple syrup. So when the maple seeds start flying we're going to plant the seeds in the greenhouse. After 5 years we'll transplant them along the South property line near the slowly growing orchard.

We're hoping to replace the fabric doors with garage doors eventually. Should be a lot less hassle.