Things are busy, but we managed to get a bunch of eager little plants into the ground. The upshot of being barely mechanized is you can transplant in the pouring rain without fear of field compaction.
Cara in a window of dry weather this morning.
We've had almost 2 1/2 inches of rain in the last few days, which is about 2" more than we'd like, but we managed to fill every bed we have prepped. With a stroke of good fortune, we had a few hours of dry weather to get some low tunnels up on the cukes, tomatoes, and squashes, too. We ended up finishing the job in the pouring rain again, but it was a nice reminder of what it's like to work in the sun. Not too shabby.
We had a little SNAFU with the low tunnels, as we'd ordered all of our row cover 83" wide (to cover a full 6' bed with room for plants to grow). Unfortunately when you drape that 83" over a 6' hoop that's got 12" in the ground on either end, you have about 3 feet of slack. We really didn't want to punch holes through the middle of the stuff (it's almost $200 a bolt), but we also need it to be taught so the hoops are well-formed and don't press on the plants or blow away in the wind.
After much gnashing of teeth, we ended up shoveling in the entire row. We may end up cutting the remainder of the bolt down to the right size and writing the difference off as a the cost of learning, or we may keep shoveling. Shoveling soil works better than the alternatives (sand bags or plastic spikes) but it's very, very time-consuming.
We had a little SNAFU with the low tunnels, as we'd ordered all of our row cover 83" wide (to cover a full 6' bed with room for plants to grow). Unfortunately when you drape that 83" over a 6' hoop that's got 12" in the ground on either end, you have about 3 feet of slack. We really didn't want to punch holes through the middle of the stuff (it's almost $200 a bolt), but we also need it to be taught so the hoops are well-formed and don't press on the plants or blow away in the wind.
After much gnashing of teeth, we ended up shoveling in the entire row. We may end up cutting the remainder of the bolt down to the right size and writing the difference off as a the cost of learning, or we may keep shoveling. Shoveling soil works better than the alternatives (sand bags or plastic spikes) but it's very, very time-consuming.
It was a big dilemma whether to fill the section with poorly-laid plastic (and have it available immediately to plant into) or just lay a few beds and gamble that the weather will let us prep the rest in time (giving the trash in the field time to break down, so we can lay better mulch). I think we lost the gamble, but it'll be alright. Here's the three we already filled, and now we're waiting on dry weather to fill the section.
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