Making Progress with Planting and Mulching

Over the weekend Charles was able to lay a bunch of the plastic mulch for our plants to be transplanted into soon. Then it started to rain, so that gave him a day or two in the greenhouse to get more plants ready to be transplanted!

Thank goodness for the pretty days we can get out in the field, and thank goodness for the rainy days that force us to get into the greenhouse and get more seeds in trays. Sometimes if it's sunny for too many days in a row, we get behind in our greenhouse work. And vice versa when it's rainy, we get behind in our field work.

Such is the life of a farmer, though, we're at the mercy of the weather - big time! Who needs a one-armed bandit when you have mother nature to gamble with?

Charles, the Mulch-Laying Man!

Charles worked at laying plastic mulch pretty much all day. When you lay a couple miles of it each year, it takes a little time.

The process goes like this: After plowing and working down the soil, you till the beds so the soil is nice and soft. Then you lay the plastic with the raised bed mulch-laying machine (ours if partly homemade by Charles, partly store-bought). Voila, nice, ready-to-plant-in, raised beds!

We hope tomorrow we'll have most of the day to lay more plastic before the rain comes. It was nice having some warm, sunny days to work outside.

But,

Sunny, warm days cause the greenhouse and tunnel temperatures to skyrocket. So you have to water them more often to keep the poor little plants moist. Running back and forth from the farm (where the tunnels are) to the house (where the greenhouse is) takes some time.

Hopefully mother nature will cooperate on a regular basis and let us get our work done.