The ends and sides are still wide open so I'm not under a high tunnel yet and pests can come and go at will right now. And unless I get insect netting for the sides, whenever they're open, pests can come and go as will. By the time I'm keeping it closed 24/7, the pests will be gone. I'll be starting to buy tunnel materials in a week. Need about $900 worth and can probably get most of it next week. Sidewall insect netting at $155 not included. Maybe next Spring.
I've got some napa cabbage seeds so I'm going to plant some of those too. The cabbage is 70 days but all else is 40-50. Cabbage also prefers neutral to alkaline soil so it might not do very well here anyway but napa cabbage is something I can buy. I won't be planting many. Same with carrots, will try a few but not expecting much results and those are 75 days.
Will also be succession planting my favorite Bok Choy, Yellow Heart Winter(aka Golden Flower in the Snow). Dual purpose as the leaves are thick and textured enough to hold up in a salad and the stalks are good for stir fry or soups. Soup and Salad. The Bok Choy I know will grow here and am hoping for good results from the daikon. I really haven't had any failures with oriental veggies aside from pests.
Perplexity.AI says soils in Southern China and most all of Japan are acidic. The daikon I have is Japanese Minowase Daikon. Ishikura Bunching Onions are also Japanese. Shishito do good here and are Japanese as well. Maybe I should make a Japanese Zen Garden and mix in veggies. Wikipedia has 135 pics in the gallery for Japanese Garden. Still useful for something - non political.
We only get a few hard freezes here and they only last a day or three. It usually doesn't freeze under a pile of leaves or mulch. The ground might never freeze under the tunnel. We get plenty of ice where it starts off raining by day and gets cold at night and we end up with a coating of ice on everything by morning but the tunnel will protect from that. I need a tunnel for the car. Dec/Jan/Feb are the cold months like most of the US and Day length of 10 hours or more is from Jan 22nd to Nov 19th.
First thing first, I need to fill a water tank for the tunnel. It's dry as a bone under the tunnel so I'm going to stick a few micro sprinklers on stakes in the ground and give it a good soaking this morning, go get more water and sow seeds in the afternoon. I never did get it covered with black poly because of the chiggers and ticks. I raked off the mulch and mowed it down yesterday. The existing rows were mulched pretty heavy with sq bale hay cards so they're bare and I'll just start pulling and/or digging out the remaining grass/weeds as a Fall/Winter project and cover with black poly as I go.
My water hauling method has changed with the truck being down. I swapped the 220 gal tank on the water trailer for a 275 gal IBC tank and the 220 gal tank will sit on pallets and eventually a pressure treated frame against the house so I'll no longer have to precisely park the trailer there and disconnect/connect every time I make a water run. Parking it is something I had to do with the tractor due to space limitations. I'll be able to build a lean to shed around the 220 gal tank now too. Between that and the tank heater, we'll hardly ever freeze up. With no longer parking the water trailer at the house, I'll be able to put it in a spot that's easy to back up to, and most of the year, park it full.
I can't find a tank heater that will fit down the smaller lids of the IBC tanks. They do make heat mats and wraps for IBC tanks but they have a four digit price tag. I think I may have watered once or twice last winter and just waited for a warm spell and thaw to do so. I might put a tank in the tunnel for Winter. If the ground freezes in the tunnel, all bets are off because drip and hoses will freeze too and so would the veggies. That wouldn't happen until Dec/Jan/Feb anyway, if at all.