Falcon Ridge Farm expands their growing season

TOONE, Tenn. — A local farm has expanded its growing methods to allow year-round farming.

Falcon Ridge Farm has begun using high-tunnel greenhouses, which are similar to regular greenhouses but crops are grown directly in the soil. It allows crops to continue to be grown even during their “off” season.

“We can grow ‘cool season’ crops pretty much 12 months out of the year,” Ray Gilmer said.

Wintertime is usually a dead time for farming, but for Gilmer, that wasn’t the case this year.

“We can actually get about three crops in there,” Gilmer said. “We plant cabbage and lettuce and stuff in the fall and we utilize that crop most of the winter. Then this time of year, we’re planning for early spring.”

For example, some of the farm’s tomatoes were planted two months early and should still be producing fruit at least two months after the regular harvest season ends.

“They’re protected from the wind and rain. We don’t have a disease problem or pest problem that we do outside,” Gilmer said

Gilmer said they are able to get higher yields out of each crop because they don’t have destruction from the outdoor elements.

“It takes the weather out of the equation some, not altogether but some, and so it lets us be in a little bit more control of what we can do,” Gilmer said.

They are able to control almost everything, including the temperature of the soil as well as creating an isolation for this outdoor room.

“We’ll put a shade cover on this house so we can grow lettuce in the summer,” Gilmer said. “So we’re going to protect it from the sun. We’re going to cool it off to where it will do well in our hot, muggy climate.”

The Gilmers said year-round farming is uncommon in Tennessee and the only downside is the up-front cost for the structure, which they hope to make back in about two years.