Cherokee Rose

Full sun all day, only a few clouds drifting by in the afternoon. The temperature stayed in the upper 70Fs and hit the 80Fs around noon.

We need more sunny growing days like today. I ambled straight for the greenhouse this morning and touched up some of the younger plants with water. When the foreman arrived we filled up the fertilizer hose attachment and he gave the entire greenhouse a once over. We've been making good business so far selling some of our started tomatoes out of the store front, so while the foreman was busy me and the boss brought up trays of young lettuce, swiss chard, peppers and cherry tomatoes. I gave the for-sale-tomatoes some water and joined the foreman.

The two of us grabbed up shovels and tightened the new plastic wrapped over the tomato-to-be fields. The boss drove over with the tomato wagon, then Bah and I set to work. Tomatoes are a bit different from anything I've transplanted so far-- they grow a lot bigger, so a lot more space is necessary. We put the tomato plants in the middle of the rows and spaced each one 2ft apart. Only 5 of the rows are tilled, wrapped and ready for planting-- so today we stuck with the Rose brandywine variety and some Purple Cherokees.

I plant at a good click these days-- I'm finally at the point where I can keep up with Bah. We finished all the Rose variety: 3 1/2 rows or ~500 plants; then we started the Cherokees: 1 1/2 rows or 150-200 plants. Viking claims each plant can give 25lbs of tomatoes if cared for properly--if that's the case, we have 17,500lbs of tomatoes coming from just today.  We had 2 rows left by lunch time and finished up a few hours after. Working hours straight on a sunny day in the middle of a field certainly fries you up quick-- I've taken to rubbing a bit of soil over my arms when they start to burn. Bah looks at me like I'm a mad man, but hey it works-- so far no bad burns.

Here's a state of the farm aside: More little miracles in the night. The boss's brother must be kicking himself for getting rid of that bull-- 3 more calves, for a current total of 5. With the veggie aspect of the farm firmly established, we're really trying to make the herd profitable in the next few years-- so far the cows are costing much more than they've ever brought in. Viking has been coming in early everyday to check-in on them. I've seen some of the calves frolicking about, but according to Viking one mother has been keeping her calf in the woods-- leading it out from time to time for grazing. Not sure if that's normal behavior.
Talking to the boss, they usually auction off the full grown cows-- avoiding the slaughter/butchering process entirely. Years ago they used to handle the whole affair-- but the boss says he's grown soft and can't handle the miserable work.

These rainy weeks have caused a few field casualties-- a row of beets and 2 spinach have developed a bought of soil mold, killing off a good chunk of crop. We have other rows of beets and spinach elsewhere that are fine, but that's an early and unfortunate loss.

With all the tomatoes planted, Bah and I headed up to a field where the foreman planted 10 or so rows of onions. The small green shoots are about an inch out of the soil, but we weeded the space between them-- hoping to nip that problem in the bud before they grow out of hand. A cow grazing paddock borders on the side of the field-- half the herd was milling about. Found Rosy and gave her a head scratch, the other cows don't care much for people.

Bah was working slow today, I finished my onion row a good 100ft ahead of him. As he caught up, I cleared out out the over grown end of all 10 rows. Closing came and homeward.

Here's to more sun and growing.