With the rain scheduled for mid-week, we finished plowing the expansion area and disced the main field to weed Monday. Then I marked out the five rotational sections of the main field, laid out guidelines for hopefully straight rows. I had hoped to get beets and carrots seeded and onions, lettuce, and broccoli transplanted, but ran out of both daylight and energy.
I spent the rainy Tuesday getting seed potatoes, $271 worth, from farms in Lake Placid and Malone. We are having the culverts replaced to make the distribution safer. Since the ditch isn’t very deep we had to get the flattened culverts – $1400. They were delivered just before I headed out on the seed potato run. I put all the frost hardy seedlings outside the hoophouse to begin to harden off and to make room to plant tomatoes.
Wednesday and Thursday I planted tomatoes into the soil in the hoophouse. The tomato plants are absolute gorgeous – the nicest tomato transplants I have grown, and tomatoes are one thing that I do well. I got them in 4-inch pots early and spread them out so they weren’t crowded, and they are drop dead gorgeous, at least as tomato plants go. They are a foot tall and look at how nice and sturdy the stems are.
I took more seedlings (celery, parsley, flower seedlings, etc) outside to make space for tomatoes. Thursday afternoon Bruce Rowland from the Press Republican came out as part of an article he is doing about local CSAs. I put landscape fabric down between the tomatoes to keep disease spores from blowing up on the plants. Friday’s wind picked that all up and blew it around. So,
Friday was spent rescuing the tomato plants from the landscape fabric and pinning it down, not enough so I had to go back and do it again. In between I was rototilling the garden to set the hopefully straight rows in each rotation section and to make it easier to keep to a straight row. Thankfully the row cover I put over the transplants outside to protect them from the sun held. Went back down to rototill and wondered why the tractor was so hard to turn – flat tire. Didn’t have as much “green slime” as really needed, so we’ll see whether it holds. For some reason that one tire is basically disintegrating so I need to tire shop. At least it’s a front tire – much less expensive than the larger rear tires. I realized the week is almost done and I haven’t seeded transplants yet. I had been waiting to transplant lettuces into the garden to free up the trays they were in. So, I used a different size pot and planted lettuces (five varieties) and since it was getting too dark to see, prepared the trays for the red cabbage and basil to seed tomorrow, along with summer squash.
So, Saturday hopefully at a minimum I will get the French Fingerling and first Red Norland potatoes planted, onion plants planted, carrots and beets seeded, broccoli, cabbage, and lettuces transplanted. The list is longer, but those are the priorities. Oh, and the basil, cabbage, and squash seeds planted in the hoophouse.
