In addition to farming, Fane and Sandy Irvine from Pocahontas County, West Virginia, have taken on the high tunnel business in recent years. They were recently featured in an article on the Pocahontas Times./
“I finally retired about five years ago,” Fane said. “I had been working for Frontier for thirty-two years, and I needed something to keep me busy, so Sandy and I decided to start using high tunnels to grow our crops. Right now we have two high tunnels, and we use the first one for our vegetables. We are growing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and Romaine lettuce. So far, we have about 100 plants in that tunnel. Then in the second, we are growing strawberries. We have a thousand strawberry plants in that tunnel, and yes, it took forever to get those in. Everything inside here is handpicked, including the weeds, which can take quite a while to pull. All of the water comes from the rain. We have gutters on the side of the high tunnels, and it all runs into two storage tanks. Then the garden hoses come out of those and run right beside the plants under the plastic and mulch, that way only the plant’s soil gets wet, and the isles stay dry and don’t get all muddy. It’s a great way to grow year-round, and the plants do better inside here. We also have a regular garden outside where we plant cabbage, onions, potatoes, gourds, pumpkins, squash and other veggies. I also usually plant about ten acres of corn, as well. Then whatever we don’t need of all of this, we take to the farmers markets around the county and provide fresh produce for the people of the community.”