melons, yams and fireworks! oh, my.

When life hands you a perfect day to plant, what better to do with your time than, well, plant.

We woke to rain Wednesday. Not a whole lot of it but enough to give us pause before we made moves toward planting.
The watermelon and canteloupe seedlings were breaking out of their flats. Before they could hit the ground, however, we received a package (more than a week late) of our sweet potatoes (they arrive in bunches looking very similar to leeks). We ran with it. To Y we went. One 400' bed of yams.
Luckily the soil was easily workable as the rain continued. A metal-tipped wooden dibbler in my right hand and yam sprouts in my left, I made my way down the row. All was caked with mud within minutes. Awesome. Really.

Right after that we set out to get about 900 melon plants in the ground in field B.
Was rather happy with the rhythm I was able to attain in getting these guys grounded.

Just as we were finishing, two of my three guests for the day arrived. My brother, J, and his girlfriend, M.



Lovely kids. This is their first visit to the farm, so D very kindly let me have an hour lunch to show them around. They (as most are) were loving the chicks/chickens. Can't blame them. Aaaand they were up for some post-lunch harvesting.
We spent the afternoon bunching radishes and slicing off leaves of spinach.



Many laughs and two minor wounds (like brother, like brother) later....



we finished our field time and weighed up our take.
63 lbs of radishes and 81 lbs of spinach! Go team!

Very soon after, my third visitor showed. It was H's birthday and she made the trek to the farm to hang with me, bro, M, E and the chickens. How cool is that??
We broke open some rather tasty biodynamic Petite Sirah & Pinot Noir and enjoyed a beautifully warm evening. Pizza also made an appearance. "Mad good pizza!"

My brother (who also enjoys fire(y) things) brought a few small "party favors." As soon as it turned dark, we went to one of the lower fields and had a very small birthday celebration.





A great day. A great evening!

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Today's tasks were (inadvertantly) studies in minamalism... if you like.

We began late today at the suggestion of D. 9am work call. What a cool guy.

With the weatherman calling for scorchers from Saturday on, we had a hard time deciding whether we wanted to focus on irrigation prep or move on some neccessary weeding. D made the call to weed and we headed out.
Parsnips and carrots in W2 got some TLC. The first time we weeded carrots (in W1) this size (really tiny) I was confused as to why we were doing so. We were brushing away dirt from in between mini carrot tops with no real weed in sight.... Let's just say, I get it now. Taking the time to brush out all of the weeds at their "white thread" stage saves sooo much time later, and allows the vegetable to have space/energy to grow right from the start.
Beets also got thinned along the way, giving them room to grow.

Before lunch, on our way out the field, D got curious to see what was doin underneath the surface in our White Clover cover crop. A quick chop with the hoe into the soil revealed wonderful nitrogen-fixing nodules all over their roots. These unseen processes continually blow my mind.

The latter half of my day was mowing W2 lawn and rye/vetch crops. Inside. Outside. Upsidedown. New Holland. Riding Mower. Weedwhacker. What can I say? I enjoy it.

This evening has seen a bit of brainstorming as to how I'm envisioning the path in our 3 Sisters' Field. For now we're sure we want dual-branch arches over the length of the path, perhaps to plant beans upon so they could dangle down for easy pickin. We'll see... exciting though.

Tomorrow is an early harvest day in prep for Saturday's pick up.

Sleep is a must.

dig