Day in the Dirt

The garden is very nearly in!  This is where we started today.  Mike tilled it one more time and then ran the pasture harrow over it to flatten it out.

About six weeks ago, we killed all the grass and weeds with round-up. Although the garden has been tilled for a week, there was nothing growing in it when we went out this morning.  This is a good thing!  It's almost impossible to keep something from growing in our wet climate.  For this year, I think the weeds will be less of a problem than in the past. 

Here's Farmer Mike marking off beds, rows, and walkways with stakes and string.

That's always a good place to start. 

Here are some of my puny tomato and cucumber starts. They were started from seeds in the greenhouse.  They had good roots on them, and I was able to transplant them without disturbing the dirt they were growing in.  I'm feeling optimistic about their chances. 

There are three more hothouse variety tomatoes and three hothouse variety cucumbers.  I'm going to try my hand at repotting them into larger pots and growing some of my vegetables in the greenhouse this year.  Our growing season is terribly short, and so I'm doing everything I can to have as much yield as possible.

This is my planting stick.  It's used to measure off how far apart to plant the seeds, and it helps keep the rows relatively straight, although perfectionism in the garden is not a goal.  Sloppy is better when working in the dirt.  Doesn't that seem obvious?

We use Territorial Seeds because they are produced locally.  With our soil, climate, and short growing season, we can use all the help we can get.  Using local seeds means they grow here as well as anything will.

Here's Farmer George.  He's a big help.

And here's where we left off at the end of the day.

We got it all done except the corner closest to the camera in this image.  On the left are rows of corn.  We put gutter guards over them to protect the seeds and young plants from the crows.  The crows will pull the seedlings up right out of the ground.  Once they're a few inches tall and established, we can remove the gutter guards.  Still left to plant are the green beans, zucchini, and parsley.  We need to build the bean poles before we can plant the beans, and besides, George was tuckered out.

Who can resist that face? 

The rest will get finished tomorrow.  For today, we are pooped pups.