State of the Farm

We started getting things running mid-March, which isn't too bad. Here's the list (in vague order) of what we've done up until today:


Cleared and piled up brush from field edges (both growing fields and cow fields). (Took many days)

Seeded tomatoes in trough trays, set in the greenhouse attached to the Boss's house.

Cleared wreckage of main greenhouse- heavy snows this winter and too much junk. Folded up remains of the plastic covering- saved in the barn.

I had a fun day lightly raking off the hay covering over the strawberry fields planted last fall. Gotta be careful, loosening up the snow-packed hay so that the little strawberry plants can breath and get a little sun, but still leave enough on there that the sun doesn't heat the black plastic ground cover too much. We have ten double rows of strawberries- each row maybe 400 yards long. 5 rows are in the field down the hill from the Boss's house, the other 5 rows are up on the big hill across from the farm stand, pond and horse grazing.

Cleaned out farm-store and kitchen.

Patched up Second Greenhouse in the Boss's yard. Got into the bucket of the tractor's front loader, lifted me up so I could tape over some holes. Swept the area and put down cleaned heat padding. (Boss went over the propane heater)

Got up on the ladder and took off the damaged aluminum bows of the damaged greenhouse. Three bows are twisted up really bad. Once they're unattached the center-beam mercifully went straight again (the joys of aluminum). I drilled new bolt holes and reattach the semi-damaged bows. I bent cross support beams back into straight with a little help from the tractor. Bent back the damaged small brace beams and bolted them into place. Greenhouse is still open to the elements, no plastic cover- space is still packed full of tools and junk just weathering it out.

The Foreman and I laid out trays for transplanting in the second greenhouse and filled all the 2x2 containers with soil. Laid the trays out on the heat-reflector padding filling up the 3 rows 2 trays deep. Soaked the soil thoroughly, so they'd be ready. Raked and swept out the walking paths.

Transplanting day. The foreman has been in and out taking a few days off a week to stay with his girlfriend in the city- before the season really gets started. He can't get out of transplanting though. Me, the Boss and Foreman take the germinated tomato plants out of their racks of troughs and replant them individually in little cup trays. There are maybe 8-10 big tomato varieties (didn't do the cherry tomato varieties yet). It took us some long days to get all 5,000+ plants transplanted. The nights were still cold so the Boss lights the second greenhouse's heater to keep the inside above freezing.

Boss and I trim back the blackberry fields on the hill near his house, across the street from the farm stand. I clip and pile, while the Boss brought the tractor with a drag rake attachment down the aisles. We trim around the Boss's backyard and garden too.

Much more clearing brush. Separate scrap metal- pile up the junk left in the barn and with the broken and unrepairable bows and bits from the damaged greenhouse.

Burning days begin. Maybe 2-3 piles a day depending on sizes. We get permit early when the offices open, then lite up right away. Boss uses the tractor's front loader to heft up the pile's center and we light up old papers and magazines underneath- then douse liberally with diesel fuel. These days aren't too bad- just sit around tending the fire. Drag more loose brush over, push around and keep things burning. Right at the beginning is always best- the bushes and small dry brush light fast and the flames easily clear 15feet. I usually stand around with a rake putting out the grass before we have a wildfire on our hands. Visit the beehives- no activity yet its still too cold. Several streams on the property all feed into several small ponds- it doesnt even feel like work sitting on a rock, having a cigarette, watching the streams as the fire goes about its business. Lit several fires in the cow fields and get up close and personal with the herd. The cows are aloof, except for Rosie- who the boss bottle-fed as a calf, she likes to be pet. I don't mind giving her a scratch, but her sides were caked in shit-stains. The young bull is a different matter- he didn't like me trying to shoo him from the fire and i quickly decided he could do as he pleased. Three days in a row of straight burning, I smelt like a wet log. First Poison ivy rashes of the year!

Friend of mine comes and helps out for a week.
We light more fires in the pouring rain- miserable, but bearable with the company.
The new parts for the damaged greenhouse finally arrive and we bolt together the new bows. The old ones had a T like shape to their structure, these new ones are pipes- oh well. I'm back on the ladder and we drill new holes and bolt all the bows into place. We drill again and get all the new crossbeams in attached. All ready for plastic covering.
Me and my buddy get set on fencing detail. Some wild rose bushes have overwhelmed a decrepit barbed wire fence separating a cow field from a hill of old blueberry bushes. We cut back the bushes just enough to muscle out the staples, and then yank, tug and kick the posts out of the ground. Most have rotted through so it goes quick (some didn't and I kicked and swore at one for a full twenty minutes before i tore it loose). The foreman brought round the tractor and tied a chain to the barbed wire and yanked it out of the rose bush thicket. Me and friend coiled up the wire (to varied success). Now we can bring the rotor blade and tractor through and chew up all these wild bushes.
The bosses brother is retired and for the most part tends the cows, but at 79 he's still good in a back-ho and tractor so he's been tearing up the field edges dragging out endless brush.
More burning.
Friend and I get busy separating usable irrigation pipe from the damaged. The pile where they left the pipes last year was completely overgrown with bittersweet and vines, so the going was slow. The usable 2in, 3in and 5in pipe all set up on wood palates. It started pouring rain so we headed to the barn to strip and sand the produce wagons we commandeered for the CSA last season.
We reorganize the barn.
Move more junk from the damaged greenhouse and more burning.
My friend returns home, thoroughly fine with never working on a farm again.

The greenhouse cover arrives. The foreman ties rope to an over-sized wrench and throws the guidelines over the greenhouse. We drag the cover over and into place. The boss and foreman argue endlessly and finally, after what seems like hours we get the clips attached. We cut off the excess plastic and tape down the loose ends. The ends of our greenhouses usually have wood frames, which are then reinforced and covered over with plywood. I nail strips of wood over the plastic and into the frame to further hold tight the cover. Our weather comes from the west and we have a pretty steady wind from that way- so we really prepped the hell out of the greenhouse's west side. Whew, I wont be on ladders blowing in the breeze over rickety bows anymore.

Clean out the now repaired main greenhouse and rake out the debris. We stretch out the floor cloth and start laying out the palates so we can put down trays and get more seeds germinating.

Plant like crazy days. We plant cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, peppers of many varieties, lettuce, kale, broccoli, swiss chard and cauliflower. All this is set in the repaired main greenhouse. Nights are cold here and there so we rig up a system doubling over gauze plant covers and irrigation pipes on cinder blocks so we can slide something over the plants to keep more heat in. More touch ups on the green house and start patching up holes that have already mysteriously poked through the greenhouse cover.

The foreman cut trenches where we are going to plant 3 double rows of day neutral strawberries- which means they'll bear berries later in the season than normal. We shoveled compost and ash out of the tractors front loader down all three rows. I'm feverish and hallucinating the whole way.

I'm sick for three days.

Landscaping days. Back when the Boss was getting started as a younger man he took on landscaping jobs to get some extra revenue in during the lean months. He doesn't like to do it but hey, that's what me and the foreman are for. Still, he only keeps on a few families who are good customers of the farm. So me and the foreman go rent gas-powered leaf blower backpacks and get to work cleaning up some houses for spring.We rake out the acorns and blow the rest into the woods. Miserable work.

Back to work and Bah, the old Vietnamese man is back for the season. He's 59ish and the saying goes anything you can do, no matter how fast or how hard you try- Bah does twice as fast effortlessly. And no matter how tired you are or how hungover or slow you're going, the high school summer help will still work only half as fast. Speaking of, a tall high school guy has some days off and helps out. We trim a few rows of one of the raspberry fields and rake and trim the Gooseberries and Currants (There are only one row of each).

Work over the weekend to help pick up the slack from my sick week. The peach trees have arrived. Tall high school, the Boss, Bah and me space and mark the rows and hand dig the holes (for some reason we don't use the tractor *which is stupid the Boss's wife pointed out*). We plant 40 peach trees with a hearty mix of soil, compost and ashes from the burnings. Now the Boss brought round the tractor and we filled the front loader 4 times with all the field stones we could lift out of the orchard (there are another 120-160 peach trees in the orchard, some are nearly strong/old enough to let them fruit). More burning and more brush clearing (the fun of burning is over by now). Poison Ivy sets hold on me for the second time so far this season.
The foreman has turned in the compost, dirt and ash for the day neutral strawberries, so Tall High school and me lay down the drip line. This quickly becomes more difficult than it should be and 20ft segments of the line are damaged beyond use. High winds blow the 600yard line everywhere. We put staple like stakes around the line every 50ft and use rocks every 3 ft. Not a great job there.


Tall High School goes to look at colleges and then back to classes, so its just the core group again. The foreman has been harrowing fields constantly up to this point, and seeded 12 rows of snap peas. He cut two shallow trenches next to these rows and I seed the faba beans by hand- apparently the beans are too big to fit in the seeder.

Misty day, more burning next to a dry dead pine forest- not wet enough for me not to have a heart attack as embers stream into the pines. I sat in the smoke and pine needles waiting- but nothing happened. No forest fires today.

Not as windy, so the Foreman and I pull out the staples on the drip line and toss off the weight rocks at the rows of soon to be strawberries. We pick through and get all the sticks, sharp and large rocks out of the rows. With the boss we hitch up the plastic layer and grab our shovels. Everything that could go wrong with a machine does. We were left pushing and pulling the plastic layer while frantically throwing shovels full of dirt down on the plastic's edges. We plan to plant the strawberries on a slight mound for a number of reasons, but regardless the arrangement made the layer machine next to useless. After a day we finally got all the plastic laid, but had to go around on our knees to tighten the entire length of all 3 rows. The field's positioned at the foot of a hill by the boss's house, so a wind out of the west tends to roll off the hill and hit from the north. So we buried the north edge of the rows like we were building a bunker.

More landscaping- but the day was interrupted when strawberry plants were delivered. Two boxes of two different day neutral varieties. 3000 plants. So we got to work fast. Bah had been out trimming the many raspberry, blackberry and blueberry fields the past 3 weeks or so- it was good to finally see him again. He's like a quiet well meaning father that doesn't speak much English. The day was still foggy at this point so we grabbed trays of plants and our trowels and just headed out. Punch through the plastic, dig a hole, drop in the roots- make sure they go straight down (and gently), then fill in the dirt without ripping plastic-- repeat 3000 times. The sun came out and Bah brought a bucket of water and burlap sacks. We dipped the sacks in the buckets and draped them over the unplanted strawberry plants to keep the roots from drying out. The Foreman brought out his ipod and we worked along just fine. We planted 2 rows that day, 2000 plants- so all of one variety and a third of the other.

Finished planting the remaining 1000 strawberries. Cleaned out the yard around the main greenhouse- where most of the tractor attachments are left to sit. We have 2 tractors now. The CSA has been very successful the past couple years so the Boss got a new John Deere even though the old one is still working (though probably on its last legs). He's very proud that the new one has a radio. Typically, the boss is off in the new one while the Foreman is off in the old tractor- I'm walking around helping whoever grabs me first. We drag out the main 40ft aluminum irrigation pipe. One end has a basket (we tie an empty keg around it for buoyancy) and is dropped into the center of the pond. The pond is stream fed so it is always at a decent enough level even during dry years (like last year). The other end of the pipe is attached to the water pump, which is powered by a tractor. All the irrigation starts here. The pipe has aged a bit last year and needed some major care if it was going to see any use. So I setup with a wire grinder and started by shaving off all the mineral deposits and corrosion on the pipe. I set it up on saw horses in the yard and it was a pretty pleasant enough day. It was clear by the end though, that the entire submerged end of the pipe was riddled with holes. The boss got a sticky adhesive patch putty- the foreman and I spent the rest of the afternoon filling cuts, big slices, pin sized holes and quarter sized ones.

More rain. Set up another two lines of wood palates in the main greenhouse. Laid out the trays and filled them full of soil. This greenhouse is back to normal and pretty spiffed up too. Bah seeded all the Bok Choi, while I went through and thinned out the Swiss Chard and Broccoli- I guess someone was a little sloppy seeding them, as multiple plants were growing out of most of the little cups. I pulled out the weak ones to die- oh boy. Watering duty. Then the boss and I rearranged the main greenhouse and brought all sorts of unnecessary crap down to the workshop in the barn. We arranged the tables and tools in the greenhouse again and we could fit another full row of wood palates. The remaining palates had been left out all winter and rotted through so he bought more and we laid them out. After more sweeping things were looking good.

Laid out more trays on the new palates and put in the soil. The soil has to be loosened as it comes compressed and dry to the bone. So, once i have the trays out I always have to soak the soil thoroughly. Three passes, each time until they pool on top usually does it. Weeks ago the foreman brought all new hoses from his house-- a couple of them are the crimp free type, so they don't knot up every five seconds and break the flow. The boss brought down six of his "children", which are enormous potted rosemary plants (trees really) he kept growing at home all winter. Greenhouse smells pretty good now. Lucy, the Boss's female Weimaraner, found the carcass of something bigger than her and spent the morning rolling in it until the Boss took the picked it up in the front-loader and dropped it on top of a propane tank.

Which about brings us to today, which was a morning full of landscaping. In the afternoon I put two coats of aluminum anti-corrosive primer on my 40ft pipe. Me and Bah started transplanting the basil plants, while the foreman rigged up the valves for the drip lines. It was a little too soon, but the boss had me start the final coat of paint on the pipe which had to stop halfway through due to lack of enough paint. More happened but I'm tired and work is tomorrow.

That's everything I could remember (more certainly happened). In the future I'm going to try and post daily what we're doing and why: with a bit more specific details as to the why. I also want to flesh out what it's like working on this particular farm with these people. Future posts won't be nearly this long, but I wanted to get some semblance of what's been going on down on digital paper. This is all as much for my memory and use as yours, but read away!