Week one: Check!
Living on the farm has been great but like all new things have had its challenges. Learning a new schedule, both training and life/work schedule. But holy smokes it has been a week already!
Let's start with work first. This first week has been crazy because I have had to jump in head first into the transplanting week. Transplanting is when you take the seeds that are in a six-pack set as you would buy at Menards or seeds that were planted into soil blocks and then put were allowed to germinate in a greenhouse. But before I could even plant, we, the owner's Bob and Flip, had to get the beds ready for the plants.
I will do my best to explain the process of amending beds and then the process of transplanting. Ammending a bed is when farmers will take the soil and till it up. Tilling is when a tractor chops up the soil so that the roots of any weeds are disturbed so that weeds won’t reproduce. After tilling comes to compost and other minerals. Before I get too far, littleGrasse doesn't use hash chemicals so the compost is dried and processed chicken maneuver and the minerals, os Azmite, is a bag of minerals and all the other goodness a plant needs from A to Z. Now back to amending the field, in a wheelbarrow or in the bucket of the tractor Azmite and compost is mixed together to be sprinkled onto the bed. Sprinkling this mixture on the bed is like cradling a lacrosse stick, protecting the ball. On some occasions, one could rake over the bed again to mix the mixture and soil or leave the bed alone until planting time.
Starting on Friday, the three of us began transplanting in the evening, starting at 5:30 and working till 7:30 planting: cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. After a late dinner of local Indian food, I messed up my first night of cooking because I thought I had to get dinner finished before planting. Since then, every time I cook dinner, I get the meal prepared too early, I need to find the sweet spot for making dinner.
Saturday garden morning is a monthly get-together where shareholders come and help out on the farm for a few hours and then share a meal, potluck style. Lots of delicious foods. And I made a dish I haven’t made in about a decade. It was the perfect time for me to have an introduction to the shareholders so that I am not a total stranger. I can’t wait to get to know more shareholders and enjoy more delicious food!
Full parking lot with shareholders volunteering their time and then all of us sharing a meal afterwards!
Sunday night was the final night of transplanting! With help from a local kid the four of us got tomatoes, peppers, eggplants planted which was a huge success! the bugs were eating me alive. I haven’t been this itchy and cover in bug bites since i was going to camp Teko, and camp Teko was before I got serious about skiing!
