Saturday, January 30, 2016

Escapades Behind the Greenhouse

Adam is accomplishing things among the spring beds at a mighty pace. He finished the first bed and put a poly-tunnel over it.
The hoops are secured into the ground using re-bar stakes he dug up from the orchard. The PVC hoops just slide right onto them. The greenhouse is also secured to the ground with these re-bar stakes.
He double-dug another bed, mixing compost all the way to the bottom. He set it up for peas this spring.
Those big stakes used to be posts for the future chicken-house, which won't be for a while.
The metal latticing for the peas to climb was also in the orchard, rather mangled up and buried in vines. It's amazing what you find lying around an old farm.
These two cinder blocks indicate the height of these raised beds, when we decide to buy cinder blocks.
Adam shows you a sample of the soil/compost mix:
He's quite happy with how loose and rich the soil is now. He's worked so hard over the past week or so.
Inside the greenhouse Adam worked on potatoes. He'd bought organic ones to work with, as I said earlier.
He's read that it's better not to cut the potatoes up; that just exposes it to more potential disease. Instead of putting them into leaves or such, he'll let these eyes turn to green sprouts, and then he'll plant them whole in one of the raised beds he's making.
I looked over at Adam a minute ago. He was ordering something online. I asked him what. He said, "A pound of worms." That's one of the next things he'll be starting -- vermiculture. That's worm-farming. It's quite the thing these days. You put the worms in dirt/compost/manure/whatever. They eat it. They poop it out. The poop is called worm castings, and it's very good for soil. Adam is all into making excellent soil.

4 comments:

  1. The better the soil the better the crops.
    Enjoy seeing the progress on the farm. : )

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  2. Someone has boundless energy! :) Great stuff!

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  3. Your mother's mantra was "Prepare the soil." She made things grow in rock piles!

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