major transplant

This morning was absolutely gorgeous.
Dew on the fields, a little nip to the air but not COLD.
A breakfast of eggs, grapefruit and buttered, locally made, organic bread (see new link in "more fresh stuff"). I had their Raisin Walnut Multi Grain loaf & Everything Onion Rye loaf. Sooo good.
I donned my MuckMasters and hit the greenhouse.
Today we made our first big transplant of the season from greenhouse flats to field. Kale, Swiss Chard, Lettuce, Chinese Cabbage and Broccoli were all "up to bat".





Also, as this is the first year D is using a new brand of 128cell flats, we seeded broccoli in both 50 and the new 128cell flats to determine what will be best to use going forward.





The cell of the 128 is smaller than the 50. Therefore the root mass of the seedling getting transplanted is smaller. So we'll see if less root mass at time of transplant means longer amount of time to take hold in the ground or not.

We loaded up the hay trailer bed with all of our flats and irrigation equipment and headed to the W1 field. By this point the sun was staring down at us pretty solidly and the gnats were more than happy to join us.
E took an early day as she was (and still is) rather sick. She stuck it out as long as she could. So, D and I were left to transplant roughly 4,000 seedlings...
Surely not as many as we did on our onion day, but quite a bit more movement per transplant (from flat to ground).
A few pics of the process:


The cells are pulled, gently, from the flat and laid/dropped on the ground/grid at intervals specific to their spatial growing needs.





This is what I see as I work my way down the bed on my knees. Right hand grabs the cell, left hand punches a hole in the soil, right hand places the cell and both secure soil over the roots.

This we did for the remainder of the day, save for a few breaks to run irrigation lines.





The seedlings wouldn't stand a chance in the midday sun without water... especially on their first day. And yes, getting hit intermittently from the water sprayers (called wobblers) felt awesome in the hot sun.

We finished our day strong and feeling great about what we had accomplished. Our backs are none too happy with us, but they'll have a weekend to mend.

At sunset I closed the greenhouse and put our feathered pets in their coop. D and I took 30min to lay covers on what we planted today as a measure of defense against any curiously early flea beetles.

Post workday saw (and is still seeing) ice cold Yuengling and crazy wonderful sights like this.



And this for a friend...



Dig.