PICTURE DAY and Mega Post: Wash the Tractor and Mulch is Hell

Couldn't get the camera working so I borrowed one. Worked Sunday and took the pictures, here we go:

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Overcast with a few spats of sun, temperature in the high 50Fs.

Came in a bit later-- as I am the boss for today. I strolled around checking out the main greenhouse and found a job list from the real boss. Figured I would get stuff started before picture snapping.

Made my way over to the secondary greenhouse by the boss's house-- watered all the tomatoes left and there are quite a lot left. Even a thing as outwardly simple as watering isn't: consistency is key as the foreman says. You have to make sure every plant receives about the same amount as all the others-- otherwise you get a handful of dry plants surrounded by waterlogged ones. A farm is a food factory (or factory forest, depending on your level of romanticism)-its all about getting as much fruit or veggie from a plant at one given instance. Little things, like evenly watering, can accumulate toward a full and nicely timed harvest.

Walked around back to the main greenhouse, watered all the tomatoes on the wagon (its been relocated to a more accessible/lower rusty nail danger location. Then I watered all the cherry and plum tomatoes, the peppers, eggplants, broccoli and cauliflower, basil, bok choi and lettuce among others still in the greenhouse.

Hunted around the barn and found some leather treatment and conditioner. Hosed off the new tractor and gave it a scrub down. Vacuumed the cabin, cleaned and treated the leather-- then washed all the windows. Rinse and repeated on the old tractor.

Took out the disk cutter, changed cutting wheels and sawed a bunch of aluminum scrap to make their transportation a bit easier. Broke a disk and then a grind wheel-- put away the grinder.

Picture time!

Same shot from before, but more growing. The peas are a bit overgrown with grass and weeds at the moment but that's getting fixed this week. Faba beans have erupted. Owner of the italian pizza shop in town saw me in the fields, when I came in the next day he was ecstatic-- hey kid, didnt realize you worked there! His father immigrated from Italy and goes crazy over our Faba beans. Talked beans with the guy for a while and got a free slice to boot. Spinach is inching along, beets and chard are slow-- need more sun.

Close up of the last year strawberries. Blooming and lots more bud clusters are on the way. The hay cuts down on the weeds between rows and makes picking a little more comfortable. Plastic wrap is visible, a little bit. Bah has been walking the day neutral strawberries we planted a month or more ago snipping off the flowers. I guess they're too young, and cutting will redirect their energy to plant growth-- later they'll be allowed to berry. I am not sure if Bah intends to cut these plant's flowers, probably not. They look developed enough to push the first round of strawberries
.

Close up of two spinach rows, and a broccoli? or i can't remember what that one row is. These have been in the ground long enough and are doing pretty all right.

My Faba beans are erupting!

The pea rows desperately need weeding... its gonna be a long week.

A picture from the back of lower fields-- Rows of raspberries. These are the ones me, bah and tall high school pruned. I am not sure now about the whole raspberry growth cycle-- everything the boss and foreman tell me contradicts what the other said. I will just have to see for myself which give berries and which don't.

A close up of the blueberry flowers. These guys have great potential for a killer harvest this year. Last year it was too dry and we had only a week or two of blueberries.

Currants. I don't know anything about these plants. I just pruned their dead stalks and weeded them back in March.

Row of blackberries are coming back to life after winter hibernation. They reproduce by having the long part of their stalk curling down into the soil, forming roots and bam: new plant.

Across from the farm store, over from the blueberries, the foreman just laid down a ton of onions up here. He laid the seed a bit too thick, so we're going to have to go through and thin them out once they're established. At the right edge of the photo you can see the tail end of a row of sage and thyme.

View from just across from the farm store. We are going to pack the first round tomatoes into this field-- once they cut the rows and figure out the planting plan.

The wagon and the tomatoes. Loaded up and ready for the field-- now they're watered too. Its still all hooked up to the tractor.

Inside the main greenhouse, the tomatoes on the left are almost ready. The peppers on the right are ready, I don't know where the boss plans to plant them... more questions to ask.

Heartbreak hill. The Foreman and I laid the galvanized steel pipe up here from the tractor water pump-- leads off and up to the hill top fields.

Mega-water guns at the ready. These guys take over all the water pressure, the sound of them shooting and rotating travels a mile. We use them for the corn once they get strong enough to survive the water deluge.

Current view from the orchard.

Potato rows and the vacant fields beyond. I spent a lot of time up here this year. Lighting fires, rocking with bah and the foreman, and now planting these rows.

The potato rows length-wise.

After taking these pictures Viking came in and opened up the store. Talked to her a while-- we're doing s hostage exchange: she gives me a pot of lemonbalm and I give her a mess of grape seeds. Bought 14 started tomato plants for self and friends. Packed up and called it an early Sunday.



Today: (Monday, 5/23/11)

Clouds and rain. Temperature back in the mid 50Fs. Sun, Sun, Sun, when's it come?

Slow and small day. Before lunch Bah and I took our hoes out to the lower fields and weeded the rows. Covered the spinach and chard, the peas will have to wait. Enjoyable time talking with Bah, he was out almost all of last week due to the rain-- he decided to stick it out this time.

After lunch was less enjoyable. The boss had mulch delivered to one of the landscaping families, bah and I had to spread it. Somewhere crouched akimbo between flowers, under a bush spreading black burnt mulch I decided there is nothing more miserable than doing someone else's slavework--ie landscaping. When people buy a house they should face a questionnaire-- are you gonna take care of your own lawn and garden? No? Well then you have to pave the entire thing in concrete and spray paint it green.

Some of the neighborhoods our "clients" live in are fine-- nice and removed in the woods, their land bordering on the farm. This was not one of those. It was a swanky Mc-Hide-away-from-hell. I've been to this house before for spring raking with the foreman. Propped under more bushes I probably stewed over the same problem as this time-- what is this place? In all the hours and days I have spent working on this yard, not once have I met the owner or even seen a neighbor. Instead, more landscapers are parked in every other driveway, doing their thing. Truly, I counted 11 other trucks, trailers and company vans on the ride in. Yes, its a strange hell.
Actually, towards the day's end-- the other landscaping crews already long gone-- I saw some natives. A gaggle of middle aged women and their returned college daughters standing in a front lawn watched their little dogs roll around fight-playing. They laugh-shrieked-- get 'em! or Haha ha How cute they all are together! over and again. I imagine they do this every afternoon.

Finally the day end came, with mulch remaining-- so tomorrow morning we will return, to finish the mulch mound in hell.

I don't envy this future.

Onward tomorrow!