These days, most of our time at the farm is being spent on field prep. We’re getting pretty close to being fully ready. We’ve spread organic fertilizer (we use Pro-Grow) on the field and worked it into the soil, as we’ve prepared raised beds (the amount we use is dictated by the soil testing we had done by UMass). Matt with New Entry has plowed the fields a couple times now and will soon put in three beds covered with biotelo bio-degradable black plastic, where we’ll grow tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. The black plastic keeps the soil temperature up and keeps the weeds down.
Raking the soil into raised beds has been hard work–definitely no need to belong to a gym anymore. But having the plants in beds will make it easier to keep the soil moisture levels right and easier to plant, harvest, and weed.
I got to use the skills from Thursday’s rototiller class on Sunday, with the BCS. It’s a beast of a machine, and I’m only just starting to get the hang of it. It was very helpful in churning up the top few inches of soil and made it much easier to put the beds together.
It hasn’t all been raking and hoeing. I did manage to plant 60 feet of chard seeds. The rain today will help a lot for their germination. I hope it helps get my second planting of snow peas up and out of the ground, too.
Later this week, I’ll pick up our chard and kale seedlings from Natick Community Farm and try to get them in the ground.