Project Week 2

April 10th

I only worked on the farm one day this week due in part to weather and in part to scheduling. Shooting for three full days next week.

We all (Liza, Mar, Lydia and I) headed to the land trust after morning animal chores were finished. I’m not working with the animals since I am focusing as much as possible on flowers but hope to jump in on projects now and again. The big windstorm on Friday had blown the plastic off of both caterpillar tunnels and some of the rebar and pvc had been pulled out of the ground. It was still a bit too windy to put the plastic back on but we cut strings to make room for new ones and pounded t-posts back in. We also covered the beds that we had planted on the 3rd with reemay. This was slightly challenging because of how muddy the fields still are.

The wind had also popped the wiggle wire out of one side of the high tunnel so Lydia and I repaired that. I hadn’t worked with wiggle wire on other farms so at least the practice felt like a useful learning experience. It’s helping to get my callouses back at any rate.

Next we worked together to put up a t-post and netting trellis for the sweet peas in the high tunnel.

Back at the farm we propagated mums from cuttings of overwintered plants while Lydia up potted some newly bought varieties into 4″ pots. The method was to cut any shoot with a budding head that was at least 4″ long because each should be that long when planted. The bottom inch of leaves were removed and we planted each cutting into its own cell in a 72 – taking care to keep each variety together and properly labeled.

I also weeded the bed of lilies in the perennial garden. Everything is feeling harder because of the weather.