wednesday in pairs

AM frost







Oatmeal breakfast

Watered greenhouse



Morning meeting

Weeded garlic
Cloddy soil

Transplanted rhubarb

Coffee break
Ate scones (volunteer baked)

Weeded carrots



Wonderful growth





Lunch! Nice!

Hilled potatoes







Drove behemoth





Rototilled W2




Not bad..

Covered crops



"Striped" reemay



Relaxing evening

Yummy samosas

Quick nap

Believe that

Closed greenhouse

Corralled chickens

Dandelion greens

...just remembered

Yesterday's clothes



Yep. Dig.

stability

Before I get into today's work detail, as promised...





Everyone together.. "Awwwww!!"
Yeah, pretty cute. Truly wonderful.

E gets mad props for overseeing this entire process and making sure the chicks (and mom) are comfy, warm and well fed. Good work!

My day consisted of pretty straight forward work. Very little in the way of crop work, planting, etc. We did, however, begin by checking on weed status in all fields. Let's just say tomorrow is going to see a whole lotta "hands in the ground" time. Not emergency level growth (buckwheat and rye mostly), but definitely so if neglected for a few days.
While we were checking on W1, we snuck a little taste of arugula. Soooo right on. And means so much more when you've put time and energy into it. Yes, the reason for doing it all, eh? Something about fruits and labor...

First project was to install one new and replace 3 old, broken/below ground level irrigation valve boxes.

The old box half excavated


With the old box removed, the valves are exposed. Rocks are pounded in around the pipes to make a sturdy foundation for the new box to sit on. It's very important that the top of the box come just above the level of the field. If it is below ground level then every rain is going to flood the box with debris (water, mud, leaves, etc.). The new box is set level on the rock base and then stood upon by either E or I while the other begins to dump more rocks around the outside of the box. Stability.


The dirt is then returned from whence it came and pounded down... and voila!


Cap and repeat...

Oh, this is what it looks like inside.



-Lunch-

Post lunch had us checking on the greenhouse.

ONIONS!!


This is summer squash that a volunteer and I planted only 12 days ago. Grow, man, grow!!


Then a quick repairing of parts of two different doors. One on the greenhouse and one on the "outhouse." Immediately down to W2 to cover our onions for tonight's below-freezing temperatures. What?? Really. May 1st on Thursday. C'mon.

The rest of the day was spent spiffing up our farm van. Cleaned it inside and out. Tore out the old carpet on the floor as years of dirt and water have rendered it less than savory. ...to be replaced with plywood tomorrow. Put on new wipers. Looking great, running well.

Post work was a quick cleaning of my quarters, some fantastic boiled potatoes and sauteed asparagus (from our ground), closed up the greenhouse .... and... showered! Woo aaand hoo!!!

Time to rest. Say goodnight to the chicks... "Goodnight."

dig

none too blue monday

RAIN!!! LOADS OF IT!!! FINALLY!!!

I woke to this



which as of 30 minutes ago looked like this



Some may get all "blue" at the mere thought of a rainy Monday (not this guy), but after weeks of unseasonably warm/dry weather, today was exactly what was needed when it was needed. Tomorrow may see more of the same which will also bode well for all things planted and growing. Add some sunshine (as is forecast) to the latter half of the week and this place is going to explode with green-ness. If we see the kind of sudden growth D thinks we'll see then I may have to dedicate a few posts to pics only. Hmmm.

Before I run down today's activities, we'll back up to Friday.

Let's begin with the morning's transplants: Broccoli (Gypsy, Arcadia); Cabbage (Gonzales, Tendersweet, Farao)



From greenhouse... to van... to field... to ground. Note to self: 12" spacing/double row for broccoli; 12" spacing/triple rows for cabbage.
In all we planted approximately 1400 seedlings... and thankfully were helped by 3 awesome volunteers. One of whom (3 years old) referred to every seedling we planted as a "poor little guy." Really, I almost started to feel guilty by lunchtime. Poor little guy...
After setting up irrigation and prepping for our afternoon potato extravaganza we broke for lunch.
May 1st was our planned date for grounding potatoes, but we figured the soil to be ready and the potatoes were not getting any younger in the barn.
D suggested that we try to semi-mechanize our potato planting. In short, we hooked up a small wagon to the back of the John Deere and took turns (E & I) sitting (legs crossed facing the back of the wagon) with a bucket of planting potatoes on either side dropping said potatoes into the furrow at a particular spacing as the tractor crept down the bed. Sounds easy. Was not. The process needs tweaking. So, as work time was running short, we reverted to D's time-tested method of carrying a 5 gallon bucket of potatoes down the row by hand and dropping them into the furrow one by one. A little more physically demanding, but allowing for much more precision in spacing. And just as fast at this point. Again, needs tweaking.

Beautiful though (picture was taken today)


Finished Friday with dust jammed into every pore of my being. Made my train (sans shower) to the city just in time (thanks to E) and had a great weekend.

Back to today...

In light of perpetual precipitation we decided to focus on indoor activities... We actually managed to stay inside for all of 10 minutes. We ventured outside to tackle a minor ditch digging project.

(post soil/rock replacement)


Said ditch now houses a 100' cat5e ethernet cable that carries the wonders of "the internets" from a new hub in the office to E's quarters. Soon I too will have my own "intertubes" connection in my room.

...and how could I have not mentioned until now...?

We said hello to several new members of the farm this morning. One of our nine hens (the broody one) has been surrogate incubator to a handful of fertile eggs for the past few weeks. Today (21 days from their arrival, I'm pretty sure) they hatched!!
This is mom. None too happy about flash photography.



Will have pics of the chicks as soon as they emerge from under mom's wing.
Good stuff.

My afternoon was spent reading the owner's manual for the John Deere in its entirety. Though I did have a chance to drive it for the first time on Friday, I feel much more confident now about utilizing all of its bells and whistles. Woohoo!

...and miles to drive before I leave
and miles to drive before I leave...

dig

the art of riding mower maintenance

I realize that I have not had the chance to pick up my guitar for more than a minute or two since I've been here. I miss it. Will have to set aside some time. By all means...

-anyhoo-

This morning/afternoon/evening's weather was perfect. Truly.
Sunny and comfortably warm all day. Gives one a little extra boost of energy, hence my 11+ hour day of work. Happily working. Everyone in good spirits.

As you may assume from the title, my work centered around maintenance of our riding mowers. Finally, something I've actually done before!! Woohoo!

Before the mowers, I opened the greenhouse. Then we placed irrigation in our onion and pea beds. I cleaned some rather unkempt work areas by the back barn. Stacked harvest containers. Replaced some missing squiggle wire on the greenhouse.
When D returned from an errand we all dug into the mowers.

I concentrated on this one-


Having pulled the blade assembly from underneath, we realized just how badly they were caked with old grass, etc.


Cleaning in this manner completely transported me to my backyard growing up. My dad would regularly have us clean the underside of the mower with a putty knife...
If it ain't broke...


Cleaned all nooks and crannies with an air hose. Amazing what a little compressed air can accomplish. Cleaned out old air filter. Good as new.

-At this time the owner/administrator of the farm paid us a visit... and brought us each one of these.

Ummm. Yeah. I'll have ten. With coffee? 14. Maybe 15. Ok. I guess one will do. Many thanks!

Back to the mower. Flushed the engine oil and transmission oil. Removed and replaced both filters. Filled oils. Reattached accessory assemblies and fired it up.


Having spent so much time with the mower by the end of the day, I had the overwhelming urge to, what else, mow. So I did just that for about an hour and a half. So enjoyable.

Put my new toy away and closed the greenhouse. Breathed in a chest full of freshly-mowed-grass air, smiled and headed to the house for dinner. Really. Good. Stuff!

Tired now. Good tired.

Dig.

troubleshot

We did it!
The mechanical transplanter was finally put into play today!

By the end of the day it was laying down pretty impressive rows of seedlings. The first half+ of the day saw D, E and our ever-so-helpful volunteer troubleshooting, tweaking, thinking, solving and turning wrenches. For such a behemoth of an implement, it was/is certainly sensitive (when dropping the plant cells) to the smallest discrepancies in soil condition. Most of the time rocks (even smallish ones) were throwing it off. Curiously the spinach cells were giving it quite a bit of trouble as well. Perhaps it was a "too wet" cell that was sticky and deformed easily when dropped. Hmmm. More troubleshooting is necessary.

How it works:
3 people/transplanters sit in the 3 yellow chairs. 1 person drives the tractor at a snail's pace. As the implement's cross axle (not a pto shaft) is its drive train, forward speed dictates the rpms of the funnels into which the 3 people drop the individual plant cells. The 128cell flats, as you can see, are slid into upright brackets on manually spinning carousels. When sitting in a chair one has the 128 flat in front of them and between their knees a mechanically rotating cluster of 6 funnels. The person's job is pretty simple. Pull the cells from the flat and drop them individually (trying to make sure they remain upright) into the funnel. When a funnel passes the 12 o'clock position the spring-loaded bottom is opened and the cell drops down the chute. At the bottom of each assembly arm there are two horizontal skids/feet at the front of which is a miniature plow of sorts making an approximately 1 in. furrow. The cell drops between the feet and into the furrow. Due to the feet being offset from each other vertically, the soil is pushed back together behind them. Kinda tough to explain without seeing it.
What one is left with is super straight rows for cultivating and a thankful lower back.



There are drawbacks at this point (i.e., some cells are indiscriminately buried, we have to go back over the row manually and re-plant long lines of cells) as it's the first day and we don't have the thing truly dialed in yet. A few days' use and we'll be rockin evenly.

Pretty amazing machinery.

The rest of my day saw rototilling, running errands in the van, a nice lunch outside with E and our volunteer, removing another HUGE rock from W1 w/ D, greenhouse duties, setting up irrigation to "water in" today's transplants and yes, putting in the chickens.

A beautiful day by any measure.

Oh, and check out this rye/vetch in A field. I swear it was only an inch or two this past weekend.



Dig.

the sneetch machine

We have three tables of flats in the greenhouse that are overflowing with seedlings at this point. Today could have been our second major transplant of the season. However, we received a mechanical transplanter last week (new, in boxes) and are going to try to put it to use for this transplant and all others in the future.
The assembly has been an ongoing project, mostly for D. E has been helping quite a bit as I've been off weeding onions. I did help for a while today though. Assembling "systems" by means of illustrated instruction with tools is truly a joy for me. Always. ...takes me back to the days of model airplanes.

As of this evening, it (the transplanter) is almost complete.
Back to this in a few...

After a filling breakfast and a morning stretch, I opened the greenhouse and pulled the aforementioned three tables of flats into the sun to harden (-to place larger seedlings outside of the greenhouse for the day to allow exposure to the actual elements, i.e. direct sun & wind). This prepares them for life in the field.

A short meeting/divvying up of duties and I was off to W2 to finish my onion cultivation project from yesterday. 2 - 200' beds left to weed.
As soon as I reached the field I was struck by how green things are becoming...





And our strawberry bed. Already.


Back to the onions. Lucky for me, I got some unexpected help weeding from a volunteer/member. She was fast too. Awesome. Aaaaand she brought tasty homemade biscuits that we actually all took a break to eat (w/ coffee of course) around 10. Then back to the onions... again.
Finished right before lunch so had time to hook up the plow to our mid-size tractor (the New Holland). ..to be used in the afternoon.
We had to plow 8 rows of cover crop under in our W2 field (which was suppose to bare fallow for the season) in preparation for a last minute change of location for early carrots, spinach, beans, herbs, leeks, beets & parsley. They were to be in Y field, but Y's soil has been too compacted with standing water to be workable. E & I measured out our 8 rows and she plowed away... and bumped into this monster (that I then unearthed) in the process.



In the meantime I set-up and ran irrigation for our assorted greens in W1. After this watering (approx 4 hours) we'll want to hold on doing so again for several days as a little bit of surface dryness will force the new transplants to extend their roots further down. If we were to baby them (plenty of "rain") their roots would remain close to the surface leaving them weak and vulnerable.

Plowing completed, we headed back to the barn to help D with The Machine.

This morning:





This evening:





Sylvester McMonkey McBean. Indeed.

I will post a step-by-step of this machine "doing its job"... as soon as I see it do so.

Dig

to cultivate is to weed

What of the past 4 days?

Friday:

E was still down for the count so D and I metered out a manageable day for ourselves.
Set up irrigation lines in our W2, SL and E fields as it was to be a bit of a dry, hot(ish) one. Glad we did as it was just that.
Most of our day was spent running errands after the initial set-up.
Picking up: hardware; electronic supplies; 1000 lbs of potting soil; 1000 lbs of potatoes.

A partial view-



Speaking of views... the mighty Hudson-



...and a bird's-eye view in the greenhouse-



On Saturday I attended the first of many CRAFT meetings for the 2008 season. CRAFT stands for Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training. www.craftfarmapprentice.com if you would like to read more about it.
Roughly 30 apprentices and 12 farmers from the region attended. This meeting was more of an orientation to the program than a specific look at the farm we were visiting.
We did, however, have a basic tractor safety "seminar" to end the day. What did I learn?
1. One's finger(s) holds up to "run-ins" with heavy farm machinery (pto shafts especially) about as well as a fresh carrot might (read: not so well).
2. If you flip a tractor (the #1 cause of injury/death with tractors), well, you're doomed. Seriously, I asked the speaker if there was any "out" or "best course of action" if you felt the tractor start to tip. His answer: I can't give you an answer, because, well, there really isn't a "best way."
So definitely read your instruction manuals and practice safe tractor-ing. Remember: Keep your tractor's center of gravity LOW.

My Saturday evening through Monday morning was wonderfully relaxing and fun.
Many laughs, lots of good food/drink, a trip to the local antique store and some moon watching through a telescope.
A few pics:


I. Really. Dig. Beets.









...Aaaaaand, finally, today.

Straight to this guy:



That holds this guy:


That mechanically cultivates/weeds the soil between rows like this:


This was my first time cultivating. I was amazed at how delicate of a procedure it actually is. And to be doing it on a tractor?? In the second picture above, notice how there is space, laterally, between each wheel of blades. That space, that 2-3 inches is for the planted row of young/fragile transplants that you'll be cultivating around. Trying to make sure you don't harm or pull up any transplants as you barrel along as straight as possible on the tractor is quite a task.
After the tractor cultivation comes the manual part. On hands and knees with a hand-held weeding tool making sure that every last one of those rye roots comes out of the onion rows. This kept me busy for the majority of my Monday. E spent her day in the greenhouse seeding tomatoes, escarole and fennel... among other good stuff.

Knees are feelin the burn a little and I'm ready for a little rest, but it was surely another wonderful day to be outside diggin in...

dig.