The Joints are a Jumpin'

Yesterday was a whirlwind adventure in learning. The lower field, which Zack finished last Wednesday night was ready for the planting of our 1200 Roma tomatoes. So yesterday morning, bright and early, our farm friends and saviours, son Johnathan and father Dan Berkshire came to help. Our tractor is too small to carry the equipment needed to plant with a mulcher and planter, so Johnathan drove over his tractor with the mulcher on board, and we lay the plastic and t-tape (this is the irrigation hoses) in preparation for the planting later in the day.

This is Dan in the overalls, with Johnathan at the wheel of the tractor and me looking on. I did eventually do more like run to the end of the rows(see picture below), lift the arm and cut the plastic and hose. Fran ended up doing what Dan was doing, starting the row. So we got the whole field done in about an hour and a half.

Then, because Dan was going to get the setter (the tomato planter), I drove to Williamstown to get the 2400 tomato plants, 1200 of which were mine. That was 20+ flats with 120 in each. Mark at Trippleridge Greenhouses helped me load, and interestingly told me my tomato plants were more vigorous than any of the others. My tomatoes were the only ones started in organic soil and fertilized with organic feed. It was obvious in size and color they were different.

After dropping off Dan's plants and mine, Fran and I took a brief break (20 minutes) and jumped into the car to go back over to Dan's to see how to plant the tomatoes. We thought we would just be observing. Ha! We were told we would be setting the tomatoes, since we needed to learn how to do it anyhow. So onto the two seat we went, with flats of tomatoes in front of us. The planter is called a water wheel setter. I wish I had a picture, but I don't. There is about 200 gallons of water with fertilizer in it (in Dan's case he added insecticide too - but we only used organic fertilizer in ours). The whole rig lifts up off the ground, including us humans in the seats, and the tractor comes around to the head of the row, where the whole rig is lowered to the ground, and the right setter (me) starts the water. The water gushes into a wheel with big prongs spaced at 18" that punctures the plastic and fills the whole with water, making it easy to stick the plug (tomato plant) in. Well sorta easy. Meanwhile Fran on the left and I on the right are grabbing plugs from the tray and sticking them down in the holes. Not as easy as it sounds, believe me. But after a few rows, we did get in a rhythm. So we planted about 1000 at Dan's as he had not prepared enough rows. Then he was going to let us borrow his tractor to do ours, but we begged and pleaded with him to come help us with ours, as we are just wanna be farmers, and that was a big (100 horsepower to our little 35) tractor with equipment that has to be manipulated just so. So he drove it down to our farm, and Fran and I planted most of our 1200, 12 rows all together. Here I am way out in the field after everything was in, making sure to fill in holes where we missed one or two.

Now about those joints. I am sore in places I never knew I could be. Everything aches. So today, I will just move slower, but there is still so much to get done. Check in tomorrow for the update!