Another Day on the Farm

Well, the week of full time farming is quickly coming to a close. Someday I hope I can do this full time - it's what I work all my other jobs for. Today we continued with the construction of The Chicken Mansion or Le Manoir de Poulet (Fran was wondering what it would be in French). Yesterday and today saw the remainder of the windows put in, two on one side, one on the other. And on those windows on the outside, we placed heavy duty wire over them so our friends the racoon and weasel could not rip through to the girls. We also finished the floor, and George got most of the garage door in. This will be the chicken's entry to the pastures, which we are in the process of now reallocating and fencing in.

Silver and Thomas were able to make it over today after two days of setting tobacco with Johnathan. Silver and Thomas had laid in the new posts and today got on them the first line of chicken wire fencing. We then moved into the tomato fields to get started stringing the second line of tomato twine to hold the very fast growing plants up. I watered on Tuesday, using for the first time our fertilizer - a new one for me: Organica Plant Booster.

http://www.cgorganics.com/Organica/Organica-Plant-Booster-p-26.html

They got about a half a row strung when in rolled a thunderstorm, and we had to move into the barn for a bit. It soon rolled over, and they got about 4 rows of the 12 completed today. If they cannot make it tomorrow, I will have to do it myself, as these plants need the support.

Tomatoes in June

As promised, here is the updated shots of the tomato field. Because we lost so many tomatoes initially, there are actually some of my heirloom tomatoes now in this field, as well as all my peppers. I might as well take advantage of the fact there is water here, as the middle field where the rest are, has to be hand watered when mother nature does not provide some. Here is what the plants are looking like, they seem to be doing very well, green and healthy (for the most part - some of the later transplants to replace those first ones that died didn't make it either - most did).

As you can see, all of the stakes are in the ground (a gazillion thanks to Dan Berkshire for finding and getting the stakes, and to Johnathan for delivery), and if you look closely you will see the first lines of tomato twine have been woven in - a Texas Weave - as our so very helpful UK ag extension agent David Hull called it. He came over last Friday to show us all how it should be done. It was really fascinating. The twine comes in a box with just a little twine peeking out one side, and a slit in the other. I had no idea what the slit was for. David had this great method for threading the twine through a tobacco stick ( I just knew there was a 1001 uses for tobacco sticks, other than tobacco), he drilled two holes at each end and pulled the twine through one end then the other. As I was about to ask what he was going to do with that, he started to unbuckle his belt. No modesty in farmers...he had to loosen his belt to slip the box of tomato twine on the belt, that is what that slit was for! He then took the time to show all of us ( I think I have not yet mentioned I have two part time assistants on the farm, Silver and Thomas, thanks to Jonathan Berkshire) how to move along using the tobacco stick and twine, wrapping around the stakes. David finished the first row, and Silver and Thomas took over and finished the field. So, here we are, I sent out the tomato contract today - when the first of the tomatoes are blush (not green, not red), we'll start picking for the processing plant. Here is one of the plants - as you can see, tomatoes on board!

Today I received a "bug alert"! I guess stinkbugs really love tomatoes, and can do some real damage aesthetically, so we need to aggressively start looking out for them. This is where the difference between us, and other farmers becomes glaringly evident. The growers update includes several options for spraying to control the stinkbugs, but none that are organic. I went out to the organic sites, and the best information I could find, was that even synthetic pesticides were not very effective on stinkbugs. The concensus organically was to pick them off into a soap water, or hand vaccumn them off (that seemed a little challenging). The organic sites say Neem oil was not a very effective solution, so I will save that for another day. Instead, I think we will try weed control, and visual evaluation to pick off offenders. By the way, my awesome husband Fran mowed all the fields in the 90 degree heat for me. He's great!.