Last week, we began planting in the first of our two big new hoop houses. By the end of Saturday's workday, that puppy was FULL. That's 6 rows, each 120' long for a total of 720 planted row feet if I did my math right. 2 rows of summer squash, 2 rows of cucumbers, 2 rows of tomatoes, and some 50' of basil. That's also over 14 varieties of veggies now under cover, and we're already casting our eyes upon hoop house number two, planning our planting schemes soon, soon.
Our greenhouse is also bursting at the seams. We seeded the second round of eggplants and peppers, first round of melons, fourth round of lettuce, and potted up tomatoes.
And in the field, there's more arugula, cilantro, radishes, turnips, dill and more! We also transplanted outdoors kohlrabi and parsley and lettuce.
Wow! Busy week. But I guess that's the norm around here. It was the first week I've felt overwhelmed quite a bit this season, but luckily, we had an unexpected infulx of volunteers on Wednesday afternoon and they helped us bang out some direct seeding, weeding and mulching, sifting of soil mix, and lettuce transplanting, not to mention weeding the potato rows--an amazing un-hoped-for bonus! I LOVE volunteers!
And speaking of loving volunteers, we had an AMAZING weekend workday on Saturday. Over 12 people came out! I was hoping for 8 max, and we topped that. We planted 3 rows in the hoop house, weeded and thinned carrots (a task that would have taken Patrick and I like, 2 days, to do) AND got the blueberries weeded and mulched and the blackberries weeded. WOW! Have I said yet how much I love volunteers? Because I do. We offered some homemade brunch in thanks -- vegan biscuits and soysauge gravy and farm-fresh greens! Yum! Just wonderful! Universe, I am so grateful.
Showing posts with label hoop houses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hoop houses. Show all posts
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Revelation
Well, it was one of those days. One stolen weed whacker, two dead batteries, and three flat tires. Last week was the week to get the hoop houses finished so we could finally transplant some squashes that desperately wanted to get in the ground. So on Monday, I go out to get the weed whacker to whack some cover crops so we can till them and finish the edge and low and behold, the weed whacker is missing! AWOL. No one loaned it or borrowed it that we know of, so it's absent without permission. Stolen! Yikes!
I like to believe that the Roots Farm is a bubble of safety, insulated from things like transgression. I mean, don't the positive vibes we create generate like a force-field that those with malicious intentions are repelled by? So I thought. But no. That was a nice weed whacker. An essential tool. Part of me is ranting and raving that tool thieves should just burn in hell, and how am I going to get my work done? I wanna smack this disrespectful, irresponsible person upside the head. Another part of me recognizes that whoever stole it probably didn't realize how much we need it, how essential it is in our operation. And if they did, either they wouldn't have taken it, or they were so desperate they took it anyway. How do you solve social issues like this? Economic issues? If they're that desperate, how do we help them? If they're just disrespectful and socially irresponsible, how do we educate them? I have a lot of compassion, but I also need my tools to stay put. I want to help, but not necessarily invite untrustworthy folks into my world. What to do? In the meantime, I walked over to Jim's house and borrowed his weed whacker for the day. God bless good neighbors. God help the ones who are not.
The two dead batteries came into play later that day. The lawn mower was number one, not surprisingly, and the lift to the dump trailer was number two--bummer, but solvable.
And the three flat tires were all associated with the lawnmower. Poor mower. The two front tires deflate if you look at them wrong. And to blow them up you have to add air while pressing on the sides to create a seal so it'll inflate. Which usually involves stepping on it or wrapping a rope around it and pulling or some other inventive solution.
Let's just say that Monday was a difficult day, full of challenges to my equilibrium.
Tuesday, I went to fetch compost for our farm from a new supplier. We're still working out the kinks on that one, but there's hope.
Wednesday was AMAZING. I love volunteers! We weeded and thinned, mulched and weeded, thinned and mulched! Wow! All this work that I didn't think we'd have the time to accomplish got done, and done well. Yay.
We also harvested the last of the kale that was beginning to bolt. I've never seen kale bolt before since I usually plant it in the spring and it dies before coming around into another spring, but yep, it will indeed bolt. The flowering heads looked like broccoli, so we picked the leaves and the heads and cooked some of it up for lunch. Who knew--a new delicacy! Flowering kale looks and tastes like broccoli raab. Yummy. Eat it with butter.
Thursday and Friday were more hoop-house related days. We finished mulching the last big hoop house (yay despite the slimy leaf mess). And we got to see 3 baby rabbits in the process. I think they had a little nest (do rabbits nest? we found an indention lined with fur) near the leaf bags and while we were moving them, they ran, but not far. We got to see a couple of them up-close. Did you know that baby rabbit ears are really small! Small! Tiny little ears. These fluffy bunnies were cute as cute can be. And right before Easter. Cool.
We also finished (3 out of 4) the endwalls with doors. Halleleujah! Finally! We installed more u-channel, also called wire-lock, to the undersides of the end hoops and cut big pieces of plastic for the doors to hang from them. The plastic we salvaged from our old hoop house that came down in the snow last year. These are in the same location, so it seemed fitting that the old house is still playing a part in our fields and farm. Plus hey, we're recycling! So yeah. 2 doors for each end wall. They're open in the middle and attached to poles so when we pull the sides back it looks like someone has drawn the drapes open. And those are our new houses. Finally. Next week, we transplant . . .
I like to believe that the Roots Farm is a bubble of safety, insulated from things like transgression. I mean, don't the positive vibes we create generate like a force-field that those with malicious intentions are repelled by? So I thought. But no. That was a nice weed whacker. An essential tool. Part of me is ranting and raving that tool thieves should just burn in hell, and how am I going to get my work done? I wanna smack this disrespectful, irresponsible person upside the head. Another part of me recognizes that whoever stole it probably didn't realize how much we need it, how essential it is in our operation. And if they did, either they wouldn't have taken it, or they were so desperate they took it anyway. How do you solve social issues like this? Economic issues? If they're that desperate, how do we help them? If they're just disrespectful and socially irresponsible, how do we educate them? I have a lot of compassion, but I also need my tools to stay put. I want to help, but not necessarily invite untrustworthy folks into my world. What to do? In the meantime, I walked over to Jim's house and borrowed his weed whacker for the day. God bless good neighbors. God help the ones who are not.
The two dead batteries came into play later that day. The lawn mower was number one, not surprisingly, and the lift to the dump trailer was number two--bummer, but solvable.
And the three flat tires were all associated with the lawnmower. Poor mower. The two front tires deflate if you look at them wrong. And to blow them up you have to add air while pressing on the sides to create a seal so it'll inflate. Which usually involves stepping on it or wrapping a rope around it and pulling or some other inventive solution.
Let's just say that Monday was a difficult day, full of challenges to my equilibrium.
Tuesday, I went to fetch compost for our farm from a new supplier. We're still working out the kinks on that one, but there's hope.
Wednesday was AMAZING. I love volunteers! We weeded and thinned, mulched and weeded, thinned and mulched! Wow! All this work that I didn't think we'd have the time to accomplish got done, and done well. Yay.
We also harvested the last of the kale that was beginning to bolt. I've never seen kale bolt before since I usually plant it in the spring and it dies before coming around into another spring, but yep, it will indeed bolt. The flowering heads looked like broccoli, so we picked the leaves and the heads and cooked some of it up for lunch. Who knew--a new delicacy! Flowering kale looks and tastes like broccoli raab. Yummy. Eat it with butter.
Thursday and Friday were more hoop-house related days. We finished mulching the last big hoop house (yay despite the slimy leaf mess). And we got to see 3 baby rabbits in the process. I think they had a little nest (do rabbits nest? we found an indention lined with fur) near the leaf bags and while we were moving them, they ran, but not far. We got to see a couple of them up-close. Did you know that baby rabbit ears are really small! Small! Tiny little ears. These fluffy bunnies were cute as cute can be. And right before Easter. Cool.
We also finished (3 out of 4) the endwalls with doors. Halleleujah! Finally! We installed more u-channel, also called wire-lock, to the undersides of the end hoops and cut big pieces of plastic for the doors to hang from them. The plastic we salvaged from our old hoop house that came down in the snow last year. These are in the same location, so it seemed fitting that the old house is still playing a part in our fields and farm. Plus hey, we're recycling! So yeah. 2 doors for each end wall. They're open in the middle and attached to poles so when we pull the sides back it looks like someone has drawn the drapes open. And those are our new houses. Finally. Next week, we transplant . . .
Monday, March 29, 2010
Leaf Bags & Pipe Threads
March 27, 2010
Farm update:
Let's see, last week we were industrious as usual. Built a gravel-based processing area so we don't have to stand ankle deep in mud while we're washing carrots and radishes this spring. Worked on constructing end walls for the new hoop houses. A task which, after a while working on it, we decided to defer until after we re-convened on how they should be constructed. We also decided to ride over to fellow farmer Jay Payne's place, Cedar Grove Farm, to see his hoop houses, which are quite similar to ours, and get some ideas. Jay sure does have some lovely lettuce mix growing in his houses right now, not to mention a spinach patch that could make cabbage patch kids all over the world green with envy. Always nice to visit a fellow farmer and see yet another way it can be done. I've heard it said that there are as many ways to farm as there are farmers farming, and I'd have to agree. The diversity of nature is reflected in those of us working with it.
In the realm of plants, we direct seeded turnips and cut lettuce mix (which I noticed today had already germinated only 5 days later) and transplanted over 100' of head lettuce starts. We also potted up tomato seedlings from 2" blocks to 4" pots. I can already tell they like it. More cukes got seeded and the garlic got weeded.
We also accomplished a nice chunk of work in the hoop houses that I had been putting off because it just wasn't an appetizing task. Mulching. Which, ordinarily isn't unpleasant, but after the leaf bags have sat in the rain for almost 2 months, becomes a bit of a slimy challenge. Yuk. But we prevailed. We hauled wheelbarrows and cartloads of leaf bags, we heaved and hoed, and in the end, one hoop house had all its aisles full of leaf mulch, ready to suppress weeds, retain moisture, and provide a ready supply of bed mulch for the crops to come. Only one more house to go . . .
And speaking of that one more house, we spent time this week re-working the beds to get them just right. Now is the easiest time to do tractor work in the houses -- the ends are open and there are no crops to work around -- so now is the time to get it right. And so we did. Painfully. It required a lot of hilling and re-hilling, discing, tilling. I kept trying to save myself steps, and finally I just gave in and did it the way it should have been done to begin with -- with all the implements and everything measured and marked out. It's amazing. Here's a math problem for you: if your hoop house is 28' across and your tractor has a wheel base that's 5' center to center of the wheels, how do you arrange the beds so that you end up with 6 of them that are 3' wide or more, each? The answer is that you make 4 passes with the tractor on the center beds, wheel tracks overlapping, and give the extra feet to the beds on the sides. I took the tape measure out and spray painted marks for my tires to go in--between foot 4 and 5, 8 and 9 and so on, and I did that for BOTH sides of the house so I could make my target line coming from either end. Never have I had to be so precise in exactly where the tires go on the tractor. Each foot is invaluable growing space, and maximizing growing space is what this project was all about. So I did. And now it's done. Thank goodness. Hopefully we won't have to do that again for a while. But hey, if so, now I know the process that gets it right.
On another side of the business, I got to learn more in the realm of irrigation. Did you know that a pipe thread is different than a hose thread? The threads are closer together on a pipe thread than a hose, and the two are definitely not interchangeable. Hmm. Good to know. Leads me to purchase things like adapters that go from one to the other so I can correctly connect my water filter to my pressure regulator to my mainline for my irrigation system. I talked with a fella from the Dripworks company where we're ordering our stuff from for quite some time about what all I needed to get to make my system work like I want it to. At one point I even drew out figures for myself to try and get a visual on what would be connected where and how many fittings of each kind I would need. Schematics. Graphs. What can I say, I like to organize my information visually. So anyway. I learned more things I needed to know, which leads to more things, which leads to more things like it always does. Pipe threads, number of gallons per minute, PSI, mainline, sub-main. Gosh, my vocabulary just grows every day. Kinda like the plants.
And, lest I forget, I also went over to UGA and gave a talk at the Sustainable Food Systems Symposium. I represented the producer side of the system, and it was quite interested to get up in front of the auditorium and discuss what "sustainable" means to me. Quite a lot, actually. Maybe that'll be the subject of my next blog . . .
Farm update:
Let's see, last week we were industrious as usual. Built a gravel-based processing area so we don't have to stand ankle deep in mud while we're washing carrots and radishes this spring. Worked on constructing end walls for the new hoop houses. A task which, after a while working on it, we decided to defer until after we re-convened on how they should be constructed. We also decided to ride over to fellow farmer Jay Payne's place, Cedar Grove Farm, to see his hoop houses, which are quite similar to ours, and get some ideas. Jay sure does have some lovely lettuce mix growing in his houses right now, not to mention a spinach patch that could make cabbage patch kids all over the world green with envy. Always nice to visit a fellow farmer and see yet another way it can be done. I've heard it said that there are as many ways to farm as there are farmers farming, and I'd have to agree. The diversity of nature is reflected in those of us working with it.
In the realm of plants, we direct seeded turnips and cut lettuce mix (which I noticed today had already germinated only 5 days later) and transplanted over 100' of head lettuce starts. We also potted up tomato seedlings from 2" blocks to 4" pots. I can already tell they like it. More cukes got seeded and the garlic got weeded.
We also accomplished a nice chunk of work in the hoop houses that I had been putting off because it just wasn't an appetizing task. Mulching. Which, ordinarily isn't unpleasant, but after the leaf bags have sat in the rain for almost 2 months, becomes a bit of a slimy challenge. Yuk. But we prevailed. We hauled wheelbarrows and cartloads of leaf bags, we heaved and hoed, and in the end, one hoop house had all its aisles full of leaf mulch, ready to suppress weeds, retain moisture, and provide a ready supply of bed mulch for the crops to come. Only one more house to go . . .
And speaking of that one more house, we spent time this week re-working the beds to get them just right. Now is the easiest time to do tractor work in the houses -- the ends are open and there are no crops to work around -- so now is the time to get it right. And so we did. Painfully. It required a lot of hilling and re-hilling, discing, tilling. I kept trying to save myself steps, and finally I just gave in and did it the way it should have been done to begin with -- with all the implements and everything measured and marked out. It's amazing. Here's a math problem for you: if your hoop house is 28' across and your tractor has a wheel base that's 5' center to center of the wheels, how do you arrange the beds so that you end up with 6 of them that are 3' wide or more, each? The answer is that you make 4 passes with the tractor on the center beds, wheel tracks overlapping, and give the extra feet to the beds on the sides. I took the tape measure out and spray painted marks for my tires to go in--between foot 4 and 5, 8 and 9 and so on, and I did that for BOTH sides of the house so I could make my target line coming from either end. Never have I had to be so precise in exactly where the tires go on the tractor. Each foot is invaluable growing space, and maximizing growing space is what this project was all about. So I did. And now it's done. Thank goodness. Hopefully we won't have to do that again for a while. But hey, if so, now I know the process that gets it right.
On another side of the business, I got to learn more in the realm of irrigation. Did you know that a pipe thread is different than a hose thread? The threads are closer together on a pipe thread than a hose, and the two are definitely not interchangeable. Hmm. Good to know. Leads me to purchase things like adapters that go from one to the other so I can correctly connect my water filter to my pressure regulator to my mainline for my irrigation system. I talked with a fella from the Dripworks company where we're ordering our stuff from for quite some time about what all I needed to get to make my system work like I want it to. At one point I even drew out figures for myself to try and get a visual on what would be connected where and how many fittings of each kind I would need. Schematics. Graphs. What can I say, I like to organize my information visually. So anyway. I learned more things I needed to know, which leads to more things, which leads to more things like it always does. Pipe threads, number of gallons per minute, PSI, mainline, sub-main. Gosh, my vocabulary just grows every day. Kinda like the plants.
And, lest I forget, I also went over to UGA and gave a talk at the Sustainable Food Systems Symposium. I represented the producer side of the system, and it was quite interested to get up in front of the auditorium and discuss what "sustainable" means to me. Quite a lot, actually. Maybe that'll be the subject of my next blog . . .
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Hoop House Construction, Continued
March 9, 2010
We finished the roll-up sides on the hoop houses yesterday. Quite the invention, these roll-ups. Lets you stand in one place and with the twist of a wrist open up 120' of hoop house wall. Pretty cool in my book. Not too difficult to install either.
Today, Patrick hooked up the gutter between the houses and I ran the tractor through. 4 implements this time. Sub-soiler, big tiller, single disc, little tiller. Managed to squeak 6 beds out of each house despite the fact that they're too narrow for the tractor to do all 6. We're just going to have to finish 2 beds per house by hand. I dented 2 upright posts in the process, though. The bucket on that tractor just always sticks out a bit further than I think it does. Oops.
We also planted beets and dill. Red and green like Christmas!
Now, we wait for the rain. I hear we're supposed to have it on and off for the rest of the week. I think it should just rain Wednesday. We'll see what the weather has to say about that. At least it's warm. Got my mandatory early-season sunburn yesterday. Somehow, I always forget how white winter leaves me, and that first warm day of the season I'm so excited to take my shirt off that I always overdo it. Sports bra tan, I have returned.
We finished the roll-up sides on the hoop houses yesterday. Quite the invention, these roll-ups. Lets you stand in one place and with the twist of a wrist open up 120' of hoop house wall. Pretty cool in my book. Not too difficult to install either.
Today, Patrick hooked up the gutter between the houses and I ran the tractor through. 4 implements this time. Sub-soiler, big tiller, single disc, little tiller. Managed to squeak 6 beds out of each house despite the fact that they're too narrow for the tractor to do all 6. We're just going to have to finish 2 beds per house by hand. I dented 2 upright posts in the process, though. The bucket on that tractor just always sticks out a bit further than I think it does. Oops.
We also planted beets and dill. Red and green like Christmas!
Now, we wait for the rain. I hear we're supposed to have it on and off for the rest of the week. I think it should just rain Wednesday. We'll see what the weather has to say about that. At least it's warm. Got my mandatory early-season sunburn yesterday. Somehow, I always forget how white winter leaves me, and that first warm day of the season I'm so excited to take my shirt off that I always overdo it. Sports bra tan, I have returned.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Plasticized
March 7, 2010
Yay! We got the hoop houses covered with their giant 120' x 28' pieces of plastic Saturday. Finally! A gorgeous day to be out, not too much wind, and plenty of help. We started out with me, Chris, Patrick, Phil, Sarah, Mike, and Nick, then later added Shelly and Jim and 4 people from Jim's work crew. That's like, 13 folks. And a good thing, too, because those giant pieces of plastic are HEAVY. And it takes a goodly number of people just to get them to slide over the top of those houses. It took us about 3 hours and 4 ladders, but we got it done. Now, those two beauties just shine in the sunlight. Covered space. Wow. Season extension, here we come!
In other news, we planted potatoes and more carrots Friday. And I think some of the tatsoi germinated . . .
Yay! We got the hoop houses covered with their giant 120' x 28' pieces of plastic Saturday. Finally! A gorgeous day to be out, not too much wind, and plenty of help. We started out with me, Chris, Patrick, Phil, Sarah, Mike, and Nick, then later added Shelly and Jim and 4 people from Jim's work crew. That's like, 13 folks. And a good thing, too, because those giant pieces of plastic are HEAVY. And it takes a goodly number of people just to get them to slide over the top of those houses. It took us about 3 hours and 4 ladders, but we got it done. Now, those two beauties just shine in the sunlight. Covered space. Wow. Season extension, here we come!
In other news, we planted potatoes and more carrots Friday. And I think some of the tatsoi germinated . . .
Friday, March 5, 2010
Planting, Snow, Planting
March 5, 2010
Let's see . . . we finished the steel frames of both our hoop houses last week. Had to bring in a couple of fellas to help us out seein' as I can't lift anything right now and Patrick wasn't at full speed either. Jeeze. But it was a beautiful day, and two sparkly new sets of hoops now stand in our upper field, ready to be covered in plastic. Which we were going to do last Saturday, but you know, a piece of plastic 120' x 28' sure does seem very kite-like when the wind kicks up. We could have gone airborne if we had tried, but the breeze dissuaded us, so no plastic as of yet.
Monday was beautiful. Gorgeous, sunny day. I got out on the tractor and tilled in the cover crops for the areas I want to plant in April. It takes about 4 weeks for that green matter to decompose, so I'm thinking a month in advance. That's farming for ya.
Tuesday it snowed. Again. In March. Weird. But we were prepared to work indoors, and so we did. We seeded tatsoi, tomatoes, and parsley. We cut potatoes to get them ready to plant this week. Second time this year that we've seeded on a snow day. Our greenhouse is packed.
Wednesday was another beautiful day. Snow sandwich. We pulled the last of the carrots to make way for potatoes. We've probably got 200+ lbs of carrots in storage now, ready to sell. We can finally retire the processing table for a month before pulling it back out again.
Thursday we seeded summer squash and cucumbers. This week is the first week of seeding summery stuff. So soon? Guess so. The greenhouse is officially overflowing, with 4" pots of summery stuff sitting on the floor, waiting to germinate.
Friday we planted potatoes--3 kinds, over 300 feet. I love potatoes. Yukon golds, red pontiacs, kennebecs. Ummmm . . . potatoes. And we planted more carrots. Roots roots!
That's it for the update for now. Tomorrow we attempt the plastic application again. Fingers crossed for no wind . . .
Let's see . . . we finished the steel frames of both our hoop houses last week. Had to bring in a couple of fellas to help us out seein' as I can't lift anything right now and Patrick wasn't at full speed either. Jeeze. But it was a beautiful day, and two sparkly new sets of hoops now stand in our upper field, ready to be covered in plastic. Which we were going to do last Saturday, but you know, a piece of plastic 120' x 28' sure does seem very kite-like when the wind kicks up. We could have gone airborne if we had tried, but the breeze dissuaded us, so no plastic as of yet.
Monday was beautiful. Gorgeous, sunny day. I got out on the tractor and tilled in the cover crops for the areas I want to plant in April. It takes about 4 weeks for that green matter to decompose, so I'm thinking a month in advance. That's farming for ya.
Tuesday it snowed. Again. In March. Weird. But we were prepared to work indoors, and so we did. We seeded tatsoi, tomatoes, and parsley. We cut potatoes to get them ready to plant this week. Second time this year that we've seeded on a snow day. Our greenhouse is packed.
Wednesday was another beautiful day. Snow sandwich. We pulled the last of the carrots to make way for potatoes. We've probably got 200+ lbs of carrots in storage now, ready to sell. We can finally retire the processing table for a month before pulling it back out again.
Thursday we seeded summer squash and cucumbers. This week is the first week of seeding summery stuff. So soon? Guess so. The greenhouse is officially overflowing, with 4" pots of summery stuff sitting on the floor, waiting to germinate.
Friday we planted potatoes--3 kinds, over 300 feet. I love potatoes. Yukon golds, red pontiacs, kennebecs. Ummmm . . . potatoes. And we planted more carrots. Roots roots!
That's it for the update for now. Tomorrow we attempt the plastic application again. Fingers crossed for no wind . . .
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Plants, GA Organics, & Two Farmers Feeling Poorly
February 24, 2010
A week+ later, there's lots of news to report:
In the land of plants and planting . . .
--the kale and chard have germinated in the greenhouse
--lettuce has been seeded into soil blocks
--carrots got direct seeded into the hoop house
--beets and broccoli raab got direct seeded outside, under row fabric as of today
In the land of Georgia Organics being in town last weekend . . .
--we made over 100 carrot cake muffins for the farm tour
--and speaking of farm tours, ours went GREAT--we had two buses come by, about 40 people per bus, and we had a wonderful time taking them around the farm and talking about our operations. Or maybe I should say I had a wonderful time talking because I sure did a lot of it. Really, getting a farmer to talk about a farm is like getting a grandma to talk about her grandkids. You have to say "whoa" to get us to stop. But yeah, it went well. Got a lot of positive feedback from the tour participants. Apparently, they think we're doing a good job around here. Always nice to hear that.
--our carrots and our sweet potatoes appeared in the Farmer's Feast dinner
--excellent educational sessions were soaked up by us farmers
--we hosted the afterparty "Afterglow" at our house and they rocked it till the early morning
More recently . . .
Both Patrick and I are "under the weather." Apparently, it's an old sailor's phrase about going below deck to rest up when you're ill, which both of us are and are doing, but for different reasons. Patrick has a nasty head cold, while I, on the other hand, fell off my trapeze in class last week and landed on my head, which is a spinal no-no. FYI, if you ever damage your spine (whiplash, bad fall, etc.) you should immediately ice it, take lots of Ibuprofen, and call your chiropracter so s/he can put your body back like it should be. Otherwise, believe me when I say it is not a pretty sight or a pretty experience. I was jacked up like the hunchback of Notre Dame and finally relented and called in the doctor after I could no longer sleep laying down. Yikes. It's amazing how far denial of injury can go. So yeah. God bless the spine adjusters of the world and the magic of their skillfully applied knowledge and techniques. And god bless my skillful healer in particular.
All that to say that two under the weather farmers is much worse than one. One can still pick up work and organize the labor and get things done. Two is just pitiful. Yesterday, we were processing 150 lbs of carrots and each of us was stopping every 10 minutes to sit down, stretch, breathe, or otherwise pull it together to keep going until the all the "absolutely necessary" tasks were done. Pitiful. We didn't even equal one whole well person. When only one is sick, he or she can feel okay taking a break to rest up because there's the other providing support, but heck, when both are down, both have to limp it along because one ailing person just can't do it all. We've call in the troops for support to build hoop house #2 on Friday. I hope we're both feeling better by then.
A week+ later, there's lots of news to report:
In the land of plants and planting . . .
--the kale and chard have germinated in the greenhouse
--lettuce has been seeded into soil blocks
--carrots got direct seeded into the hoop house
--beets and broccoli raab got direct seeded outside, under row fabric as of today
In the land of Georgia Organics being in town last weekend . . .
--we made over 100 carrot cake muffins for the farm tour
--and speaking of farm tours, ours went GREAT--we had two buses come by, about 40 people per bus, and we had a wonderful time taking them around the farm and talking about our operations. Or maybe I should say I had a wonderful time talking because I sure did a lot of it. Really, getting a farmer to talk about a farm is like getting a grandma to talk about her grandkids. You have to say "whoa" to get us to stop. But yeah, it went well. Got a lot of positive feedback from the tour participants. Apparently, they think we're doing a good job around here. Always nice to hear that.
--our carrots and our sweet potatoes appeared in the Farmer's Feast dinner
--excellent educational sessions were soaked up by us farmers
--we hosted the afterparty "Afterglow" at our house and they rocked it till the early morning
More recently . . .
Both Patrick and I are "under the weather." Apparently, it's an old sailor's phrase about going below deck to rest up when you're ill, which both of us are and are doing, but for different reasons. Patrick has a nasty head cold, while I, on the other hand, fell off my trapeze in class last week and landed on my head, which is a spinal no-no. FYI, if you ever damage your spine (whiplash, bad fall, etc.) you should immediately ice it, take lots of Ibuprofen, and call your chiropracter so s/he can put your body back like it should be. Otherwise, believe me when I say it is not a pretty sight or a pretty experience. I was jacked up like the hunchback of Notre Dame and finally relented and called in the doctor after I could no longer sleep laying down. Yikes. It's amazing how far denial of injury can go. So yeah. God bless the spine adjusters of the world and the magic of their skillfully applied knowledge and techniques. And god bless my skillful healer in particular.
All that to say that two under the weather farmers is much worse than one. One can still pick up work and organize the labor and get things done. Two is just pitiful. Yesterday, we were processing 150 lbs of carrots and each of us was stopping every 10 minutes to sit down, stretch, breathe, or otherwise pull it together to keep going until the all the "absolutely necessary" tasks were done. Pitiful. We didn't even equal one whole well person. When only one is sick, he or she can feel okay taking a break to rest up because there's the other providing support, but heck, when both are down, both have to limp it along because one ailing person just can't do it all. We've call in the troops for support to build hoop house #2 on Friday. I hope we're both feeling better by then.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Hoop House #1
January 14, 2010
Despite the fact that the ground was covered in about 4 inches of snow, we decided to continue on with our plan to erect one of the two hoop houses on Saturday. Chris, Phil, Patrick, and I bundled up and braved the cold, new world for the sake of creating future warm, passive solar space. Hoop house #1, here we come.
18 hoops, 2 eye bolts per hoop, 2 cordless drills, 4 cold Roots Farmians, and 4 hours later, we broke for lunch. Minor speed bump: we discovered that each footer had to be pounded in a few more inches to get the eye bolts closer to the ground and therefore the plastic edges of the cover closer to the ground.
Post lunch, 2 1/2 more hours to attach wiggle wire channels onto each of the end hoops and then attach a purline along the length of the whole house via a bracket attached to each hoop. 18 hoops, 18 brackets, 2 bolts per bracket, 2 self-tapping screws per joint. 2 ladders, 3 farmers, 2 impact drivers, 2 1/2 cold hours. Hoop house #1 is well on its way. Skeletal frame of what will be.
As a side note, after these 2 houses are done, I hope it's a long time before I see a self-tapping screw again.
Despite the fact that the ground was covered in about 4 inches of snow, we decided to continue on with our plan to erect one of the two hoop houses on Saturday. Chris, Phil, Patrick, and I bundled up and braved the cold, new world for the sake of creating future warm, passive solar space. Hoop house #1, here we come.
18 hoops, 2 eye bolts per hoop, 2 cordless drills, 4 cold Roots Farmians, and 4 hours later, we broke for lunch. Minor speed bump: we discovered that each footer had to be pounded in a few more inches to get the eye bolts closer to the ground and therefore the plastic edges of the cover closer to the ground.
Post lunch, 2 1/2 more hours to attach wiggle wire channels onto each of the end hoops and then attach a purline along the length of the whole house via a bracket attached to each hoop. 18 hoops, 18 brackets, 2 bolts per bracket, 2 self-tapping screws per joint. 2 ladders, 3 farmers, 2 impact drivers, 2 1/2 cold hours. Hoop house #1 is well on its way. Skeletal frame of what will be.
As a side note, after these 2 houses are done, I hope it's a long time before I see a self-tapping screw again.
The Genius of Geometry
January 14, 2010
Last Monday we decided that, instead of building more hoops, we would create the squared foundation for our hoop houses. Rain was in the forecast for later in the week, and the foundation footers needed to be set before soppy wet weather set in, so we gathered together our tools and made our way to the field site that is the future home of 2 giant, 120' x 28' hoop houses. Actually, Patrick gathered the tools and I gathered the tractor because the field currently had quasi-set rows and we were about to radically alter their configuration. Therefore, we needed to flatten out the rows first. You know, start the new houses on a clean slate. Practically, the flattening was also helpful for setting the footers in level-ish ground. So flatten I did, courtesy of the double-discs.
Now that we were flat, we needed to establish square. Okay, so I don't know about you, but I've never built a structure. Structure Building 101: make your area square. Otherwise, you get something that is catawhompus at best, unstable at worst. To square a structure, you need 3 points of contact (wow, kinda like bouldering). One set corner and two variable points. You can use a "3-4-5" principle, where you make a triangle and the length of one side is a multiple of 3, the other a multiple of 4, and the diagonal a multiple of 5, which we didn't do. Or you can set two sides and pull a line diagonal, then make sure the diagonal line is the same length for the other cross-ways, which we did do. Imagine a rectangle with a big "X" in the middle--both legs of the "X" have to be the same length. If they are NOT the same length, you have a rhombus instead of a rectangle. And rhombuses do not make good long-term hoop house foundations. So okay. Sounds simple enough, right?
Well it may sound simple, but 4 hours later, we were still shifting lengths and then 2 sides would be right and one diagonal, but not the other, and then one side would be longer than we made it originally somehow and it was like garden gnomes were wrecking havoc on our spacing and tape measuring. Yikes. I felt like an 8th grader with a learning block. How could it not be working? It sounded so simple.
So after the millioneth time walking 120 feet down and 56 across and like, 133 diagonal and still not creating a square structure, I called in reinforcements--i.e. our neighbor Jim. Now Jim was an engineer once upon a time and is frequently my idea-guy when it comes to working with things mechanical, technical, and logistical. He's pretty much always got a good idea for me and either way can always be counted on for a smart-ass commentary if nothing else. Jim proceeded to tell us that yes, indeed, our structure was catawhompus. The missing gem of inspiration was the idea that all we had to do was shift 2 of the sides the same amount to make it square. Like a beam of light shining from heaven. 10 minutes later, we were ready to set footers.
Footers are steel posts, about 3 feet long in our case. And to set them, we had to pound them with a post-pounder about 2 feet deep. The soft ground was working in our favor, so setting them was really not so bad. 32 footers for each house, 64 total, for a total pounded depth of 128 feet. I think that's how deep our well is. Anyway. 4 hours to make it square, 45 minutes to pound 32 footers 2 feet deep each. Hour and a half of pounding time. I swear, it's always the thinking time that takes the longest.
Thus, the genius of geometry comes to visit. Pay attention you 8th graders, you can actually use this stuff.
Last Monday we decided that, instead of building more hoops, we would create the squared foundation for our hoop houses. Rain was in the forecast for later in the week, and the foundation footers needed to be set before soppy wet weather set in, so we gathered together our tools and made our way to the field site that is the future home of 2 giant, 120' x 28' hoop houses. Actually, Patrick gathered the tools and I gathered the tractor because the field currently had quasi-set rows and we were about to radically alter their configuration. Therefore, we needed to flatten out the rows first. You know, start the new houses on a clean slate. Practically, the flattening was also helpful for setting the footers in level-ish ground. So flatten I did, courtesy of the double-discs.
Now that we were flat, we needed to establish square. Okay, so I don't know about you, but I've never built a structure. Structure Building 101: make your area square. Otherwise, you get something that is catawhompus at best, unstable at worst. To square a structure, you need 3 points of contact (wow, kinda like bouldering). One set corner and two variable points. You can use a "3-4-5" principle, where you make a triangle and the length of one side is a multiple of 3, the other a multiple of 4, and the diagonal a multiple of 5, which we didn't do. Or you can set two sides and pull a line diagonal, then make sure the diagonal line is the same length for the other cross-ways, which we did do. Imagine a rectangle with a big "X" in the middle--both legs of the "X" have to be the same length. If they are NOT the same length, you have a rhombus instead of a rectangle. And rhombuses do not make good long-term hoop house foundations. So okay. Sounds simple enough, right?
Well it may sound simple, but 4 hours later, we were still shifting lengths and then 2 sides would be right and one diagonal, but not the other, and then one side would be longer than we made it originally somehow and it was like garden gnomes were wrecking havoc on our spacing and tape measuring. Yikes. I felt like an 8th grader with a learning block. How could it not be working? It sounded so simple.
So after the millioneth time walking 120 feet down and 56 across and like, 133 diagonal and still not creating a square structure, I called in reinforcements--i.e. our neighbor Jim. Now Jim was an engineer once upon a time and is frequently my idea-guy when it comes to working with things mechanical, technical, and logistical. He's pretty much always got a good idea for me and either way can always be counted on for a smart-ass commentary if nothing else. Jim proceeded to tell us that yes, indeed, our structure was catawhompus. The missing gem of inspiration was the idea that all we had to do was shift 2 of the sides the same amount to make it square. Like a beam of light shining from heaven. 10 minutes later, we were ready to set footers.
Footers are steel posts, about 3 feet long in our case. And to set them, we had to pound them with a post-pounder about 2 feet deep. The soft ground was working in our favor, so setting them was really not so bad. 32 footers for each house, 64 total, for a total pounded depth of 128 feet. I think that's how deep our well is. Anyway. 4 hours to make it square, 45 minutes to pound 32 footers 2 feet deep each. Hour and a half of pounding time. I swear, it's always the thinking time that takes the longest.
Thus, the genius of geometry comes to visit. Pay attention you 8th graders, you can actually use this stuff.
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