Here’s the new field, in various states of readiness. Up front, it’s only been plowed and disked, with big hunks of sod waiting to be busted up. Further off, the trusty Kubota compact tractor has done its thing with a 48″ rototiller, and the ground is nearly ready to go. This time around, more or less everything that’s early and direct seeded will go in at once, including a first planting of PEAS. New year, new garden—it will be interesting.
Sun, May 24, 2009 
Filed under Fieldwork, People, Spring, Tools, Veggies
Another fine temporary measure this spring (and another of the many things the trusty Kubota compact tractor can do) is our new spot-watering method. Michelle waters in a last, experimentally late tray of onions with a slightly modified, inexpensive ($5) plastic watering can that holds about 2 gallons (8 l), and has big holes for fast, high-volume output. These cans we usually plunge into a rain barrel (or snow barrel) for filling, and to speed that up, I cut a squarish opening in the top (I always forget to cut the opening to the back, so water doesn’t escape from the top when pouring when full). The trick here is that the water comes from the Kubota’s bucket, maybe 30-40 gallons (110-150 l) of it, depending on how carefully the drive. You fill up, then head over to exactly where you want, like a movable rain barrel! The whole thing is quick and easy, good for watering in new seedings and transplants, until I hook up the field-long irrigation pipe. Quite the luxury, in a way, but the tractor’s already there, and we gotta keep things moving along! :)
Wed, May 13, 2009 
Filed under Fieldwork, People, Spring, Tools
When there’s a whole small section to cover, spreading compost with the Kubota compact tractor bucket is a lot faster and more efficient than the painstaking bed-by-bed method. This has been my usual approach for spot spreading, usually for 50′x50′ squares. Covered in reverse: the roughly distributed compost is quickly raked out (looks like a lot of work, but only takes 5-10 minutes!), before being rototilled in.
The real trick is backing up while dumping, rotating the bucket up and down. As long as the compost is flowing and not too clumped, this works great, gets a lot of the job done.
After a little experimentation, we came up with a simple debagging method, Lynn demonstrates: slit the bag in the bucket, then quickly flip it, pull up, and give it a couple of shakes. This compost is quite heavy (35% moisture, the label says?! expensive certified organic water…), so it quite easily tumbles out… And there we go, tiny methods for the tiny farm!
Fri, May 08, 2009 
Filed under Building & Fixing, Fieldwork, Greenhouse, People, Seed starting, Spring, Tools, Veggies
What’s in a photo? Depends what you’re looking for! Take this pic of Andie, rototilling today with the Kubota. Pretty straightforward: woman, machine, field. BUT, can you spot practically EVERY main part of a really tiny farm (at least, of this one), represented right here?
It’s mostly hand work, but there’s some gear: Of course, we have the Kubota compact tractor, flagship of an motley assortment of gear specifically suited to tiny farming. It’s rugged, very much a diesel TRACTOR, but small, and designed more for the big estate crowd than agriculture. Around here, though, it’s the workhorse machine, a people multiplier with its bucket and essential 48″ rototiller. As far as I know, rototillers aren’t core gear on tractor farms, but it’s our ONLY field implement so far, a huge labor-saver over walking up and down with the walking rototiller, or digging by hand. And the turf tires seem to work just fine.
New people diving in: And then there’s Andie, doing (tiny) tractor work within the first few hours of her entire market garden experience. (It’s cool that she’s already looking over her right shoulder, it’s a classic tractor farming pose—except maybe not with GPS?) She also has DIRTY HANDS on the wheel, from checking out the tilling results, and they’ll stay dirty as she moves off the tractor in a few minutes, on to hands and knees to plant onions.
A big shed (aka barn): A barn of some sort is the main, sooner-or-later essential, working structure that separates clear land from a working tiny farm. Really, a basic barn is just a big, all-purpose shed (this one, 20′x32′, is pretty tiny, just four walls), for getting things out of the weather. You use it to store harvests and gear, and to work out of the wind and rain (and of course, we have winter). With rough carpentry, you remodel and reconfigure it to fit: an extra hook here, new door there, closed off room in a corner, whatever you need!
Lots of work, all day long: Elsewhere in the pic, less obvious but clear signs of tiny, labor-intensive veggie growing. In front of the barn, tables of seedlings are hardening off. They’re brought out in the morning, taken in at night, back and forth, back and forth. That’s because the greenhouse (hoophouse frame on the left) isn’t finished yet. And THAT’s because there is just SO MUCH TO DO ALL AT ONCE. Like, mow the grass for mulch, before it gets outta control. And get a new battery for the John Deere riding mower (on the top left), so it can haul around the trailer loaded with whatever we need to get LOTS MORE STUFF done. It all weaves into one big picture of tiny, simple, interdependent tasks that go on and on and on, all day long…
It can get a little intense, but it’s also really fun, if you don’t get all grim and serious about it and try to tie in the state of the entire planet (try to stop following the news!). You get to pretty much see where you’re going. Meet people in a really interesting way. Eat well. Sleep well. Kinda…simple! I think that’s a pretty good start…
Mon, May 04, 2009 Filed under Fieldwork, Spring, Tools
This has gotta be the most painstaking way to plant out two acres of veggies! To recap: different sections of the two fields are at different stages of tillage (Peter down the road has had to come back a couple of times to disc, and there’s STILL a small section to go), and of course there was no time to spread manure in the fall. It’s even a little more complicated, with a fair amount of chopped up sod getting in the way. Sooo, we’re working a few beds at a time, with different treatments depending on the crop.
Here, Tara and Lynn prepare a 50′ x 3′ (15.2m x 0.9m) bed for baby lettuce for mesclun. Because it’s seeded densely and grows quickly, we decided to apply a fair amount of that expensive certified organic compost, and then reuse this bed for at least one or two more mesclun plantings later in the season.
Spreading from Bags Method 1: We brought over a stack of 40lb (18kg) bags in the bucket of the Kubota compact tractor, emptied 8 bags one by one, and lightly raked them in. Thinking about it afterwards, it seemed easier to empty the bags into the bucket, use a shovel to spread, then rake it in. An extra step, but overall quicker to incorporate.
Definitely hand-work, especially compared to loading up an 8-ton manure spreader and driving it around with a big tractor, like we mostly used to do! Good thing we’re only giving this special treatment to a few beds for salad greens. And it is all getting done…
Seed potatoes arrived today, all the way from tiny PEI (Canada’s potato province!). It’s still difficult to find certified organic potato stock, especially in more-than-home-garden-less-than-big-farm quantities, so it’s back to Veseys for another 300 super-expensive pounds, from 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away. Not too local, but that’s part of the certified organic game, finding seed… This year, the delivery charge upped the price by 60%—it’s expensive to truck stuff.
Unloading. The lane to the barn is narrow, has an obstructive tree right beside a slight but critical bend, slopes upwards, and falls off on one side—big trucks don’t even try to get in. We have to unload at the side of the not-too-busy 2-lane secondary road. Once again, the Kubota compact tractor makes up the difference, this time standing in as a forklift replacement.
Transport trucks it seems often don’t have elevating tailgates that can handle weight, they’re set up for forklift loading, so if you don’t have a handy farm forklift, you have to unstrap the pallet and hand-bomb everything off by the piece. The truck drivers are usually really helpful. This was just six 50lb sacks, two each of Penta (like Yukon Gold), Chieftain (red), and Gold Rush (russet-type), so we’re done in no time!
Machines can communicate: See ya!
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