Monday, July 16, 2012

Fence-Building etc.


It's July 15th, and the crops are in!  We just have some late successions of lettuce, pac choi and the like to get in over the next couple months.  Potato planting this year was a speedy group effort: dig a shallow trench with a wheel hoe, band in fish meal and sul-po-mag, plant whole sprouty potatoes, and then cover them up with the same wheel hoe.



Gib cleaning up during potato planting.



Elsie and Ada cleaning up on stunning-ness during potato planting.

Anna (that's me) seeding pelleted carrot seed with a double gang Earthway seeder.  Didn't work so well.

Anna on the double gang seeder and Chris on the single to complete the 3-row bed.

Crops and barnyard around the summer solstice.

Tyler walking through the orchard.
On June 23rd we had a fence-building party to really get things kicked off, and get those deer moving out of the orchard and away from their young apple trees snacking.  To prepare, Seth dug many of the post holes with a borrowed post hole auger that hooked on to our Kioti tractor, and Seth and Tyler hauled and put into position many of the cedar posts they had cut from the woods surrounding the orchard.
Touching up a hole by hand.

Setting the posts

The first run of posts, heading north along the east side of the orchard

Setting up for the gate, the last posts to go in.

Trusty post hole digger

The last run of posts, heading east along the south side of the orchard

  
Ta-daaaah!
A few days after the fence started going up, our two apprentices for the season arrived: Kerstin and Katya.  They are amazing, hard-working, and great company.  Thanks to them, we have caught up on a lot of farm work that had been neglected and things are looking beautiful.  Now, for a little more rain!?!?