Rain watch begins
The season’s weekly rain watch begins. Weeks start on Monday. The big 25 on the rain gauge is the magic 25mm/1″ mark, the rule-of-thumb ideal for a week—an inch of slow and steady rain over a few hours, and of … Read the rest
Tools
Equipment for large-scale agriculture is too big or too expensive, and many home gardening tools don’t work efficiently on larger jobs or break easily. Tiny farming on plots up to two or three acres requires its own special gear…
Bucket loading
Especially in spring, with constant seeding and transplanting, moving gear around the field is a bigger deal than it may seem. Forget stuff, even little things like a hose fitting or a seed plate or some twine, and you’re heading … Read the rest
Mixing greens
Measuring seed for lettuce and Asian greens mixes, using a digital gram scale from the local headshop. It works well, except I wish the auto-shutoff didn’t happen so quick. I was quite amazed by the selection of digital scales available, … Read the rest
Planet Jr. rides again
Rolled out the Planet Jr. seeder and got in a first 300′ of peas. Sugar Ann snap peas, that’s edible pod. This is just ahead of three days of colder temperatures, rain, and possibly snow. Since the weather forecast lately … Read the rest
Planting the rain gauge
The field is way dry enough to till, so it’s time to get on the rain watch (yeah, and like as not there will be some snow in there)! Picked a new spot, just for variety, and set out the … Read the rest
It’s gotta be summer!
Wayne doing early evening yardwork SHIRTLESS on one of his trusty old tractors means it’s gotta be summer, right?! Well, this is actually only the first day of spring, a balmy 27ºC (80ºF) day that even managed to get the … Read the rest
Patchy frost
[Fri, Sep 16, 2011] First frost wasn’t too bad at all, a patchy frost that hit the field lightly, and in some areas, hardly at all. Still, the row cover, over some beans, peppers, eggplant, and a couple of beds … Read the rest