Wow! Nice! I went to one yesterday. They had some chard & sweet potatoes. You, single handedly, have better & more stuff than the circus of a "farm" I saw yesterday. I would be thrilled to pieces to shop at your lovely stand full of stuff worth buying. Props to you.

I'm impressed that, Kansas, you've recently harvested tomatoes and peppers. Not really winter market veggies. Have you not had a freeze yet? Or maybe you just had them in the fridge for a month?

zzackey: The round yellow things are yellow tomatoes.

daninthedirt: We have 6 high tunnels and grow peppers and tomatoes into the winter. This is the last of the tomatoes, but the peppers are still going strong. We picked the tomatoes a week ago and ripened them up in the basement. The peppers were picked on Friday for the Saturday Market. We haven't had a killing freeze yet at our farm. Some light frosts, but there are still some tomatoes outside that are still green and blooming. It is suppose to be near 70 on Tuesday. Last year at this time we had a few light snow flurries. It is strange.

Marianne: Thank you, It is nice to hear what you said. I wish the customers at our market know how good they have it.

Absolutely beautiful! I wish you lived near me; I'd have to back my car up to the back door and load it up. I'm serious.

Oh my goodness, how I wish I was closer to you! How I wish we had nice fresh home grown veggies like that somewhere around here! ! We do have a once a month Farmer's Market here now, but not much in the way of fresh vegetables. Mostly home canned goods, like pickles & such, and baked goods, and lots of crafts. I am really and truly lusting after your root vegetables!

Rusty

Do you heat your greenhouse? and if so how?

Right. I remember you posting pictures of your tunnels. Awesome. Do you heat them at all? I guess I'm wondering how cold it can get outside without having a freeze inside.

Jrslick you've got an awesome assortment of produce, much better than any farmer in my market. Too bad your attendance wasn't better. Foot traffic at our market really started to wane in October, and we couldn't stomach going into November. It's hard enough dealing with the cold and dark, but to bring home so much of what we harvested was just soul crushing, so we opted out of our November market. Good luck!

ZZackey: We do not heat any of our high tunnels. When it starts getting cold, we cover everything with row cover. Most things pull through without any problems. This fall/winter has be beautiful the coldest we have been is 30 degrees. We live on top of a hill and the frost and cold air will settle away from us. We usually are one of the last to freeze in the area. Last year our first cold spell was in October and it went down to 22 degrees. The difference a year can make.

Daninthedirt: No heat, just the power of the sun! Things will freeze in the high tunnels, but when the sun comes out and the building starts to warm up, they will start warming up and thaw. We have been below zero outside, with a wind chill of 20-30 below zero and picked spinach the next day after the sun came out. In fact, I have picked spinach and condensation on the plastic was frozen, but at the ground level, it was above freezing. In the spring, we have taken tomatoes down to 18 degrees outside and had the tomatoes double covered and only lost a handful (hope that doesn't happen ever again!

That's really interesting. Yes, I'll bet you end up with a layer of ice on the inside of your tunnels when it's frigid outside. I'll bet a layer of ice on the inside of your tunnel actually helps insulate it.

Love the photos!

So when you bring home tons, what do you end up doing with it? Saving the roots and cooking the greens?

Also, from the pics of your fields and high tunnels you seem to have a very large operation going - do you sell to other places other than at the market? Restaurants, stores, etc.?

My niece and her husband are newly farming their own land (after learning the ropes working running a couple other farms) and it was interesting to hear about how they made connections to sell the extras. Like when a store committed to huge amounts of kale and chard, and they grew it for them, the store backed out and wanted much less. Enter: local juice bar making green smoothies!

Always enjoy your wonderful photos :)

Elisa: The roots just go back in the walk in cooler and sweet potatoes into the storage room. That is why I grow them, they have great shelf life. I sell at 4 markets a week and usually don't have too much left over. We farm on 1.25 acres with the high tunnels included.

I put together bundles of produce and have been trying to sell them for $20 on Facebook classified and several other sources. So far we have sold 14 bundles. Can probably do another 15-20. The bundles include the following

1 head of lettuce(will vary), 1/2 pound spinach, kale, collard greens,
and Swiss chard,1 bunch of cilantro, 1 bunch of radishes, 1 pound of
carrots, 3 colored bell peppers(colors will vary), 5 jalapeños, 3 pounds
of root vegetables(turnips, watermelon radish, black radish, green
meat, purple meat, and white daikon radish).

It is a little less than what people would pay if they bought it at the market, but I am just happy to move the greens.

Anything else, I will just eat ourselves or have to toss. We have more growing. This is the spinach we have growing. I picked none of it, I still have two more 32 foot beds of spinach outside and another 75 foot bed in a low tunnel (much smaller). The weather this fall has been perfect for good growth.

Here are two of my other buildings

Inside a low tunnel

it would be worthwhile raising rabbits if you have many leftovers, Jay. I know someone who raises them without feed, about 100 a year for the extended family. Just acorns, hay, old bread from a bakery and scraps. The scraps you have are well balanced for rabbits. The alternative is pigs, who also prosper on greens and roots, but they are so much more trouble to raise. Rabbits are a breeze to process, and much more cold hardy.

I also get layers of frost inside my low tunnels. Yes, it does insulate because it has a snowflake texture that traps some air (though not as thick as a snowflake). The snow can pile up two feet on the sides, so the overall insulation is good to excellent. The problem is irrigation for me. Beds do get dry over three months, and the soil has to be without mulch to provide thermal ballast. I cover as late as possible (Thanksgiving week end), bring a 5 gallon pail whenever possible, and open as early as possible in early spring.

We do have 4-H pigs during the summer and they get some of the scraps or it goes into the compost heap. We also have several 4-H steers and heifers, so sometime we give them the green stuff. We have plenty of rabbits, just of the wild variety.

You have an awesome setup! We've never tried a high tunnel. Maybe you could give your excess veggies and greens to a local food bank instead of tossing them.