machines can be our friends

The chickens are in! Coop construction is finished, their little home was done on Monday afternoon, and by Monday evening, all the chickens were moved out of the greenhouse and into their coop. Then we disassembled their temporary brooder and put away for next year's little chicks.

After a construction project that lasted three days, I was definitely ready for some low key labor that did not involve insulation or chicken wire. I was rewarded with a full day of greenhouse work and an introduction to the tractor.

The plants we eat in Maine during July and August (peppers, tomatoes, eggplant) are heat loving plants. And heat loving plants want things warm from the beginning. So even though the greenhouse stays between 60-80 degrees (70-75 with moving air being ideal), these little seeds need to be warmer in order to germinate. They are put in little slot trays, close together and then put on a warmed germination table until they sprout. Once they sprout, we transplant them into either single cell trays or their own 4 inch pots (aptly called "potting up") and they grow in those pots until being put into the ground. So today was all about taking tomatoes and celeriac out of their germination trays and putting them into individual trays. It was great, I was warm all day and listened to crappy pop music.

There is heartier stuff in the greenhouse, too. Chard, kale, lettuce, cabbage, onions and kohlrabi for example. These plants that can go into the ground as soon as the ground is ready. Which is not yet. Even though a couple of fields are no longer snow covered, all that melted snow makes the ground too wet for the tractor. If a tractor is used on a field that is too wet, it can compact the soil in a way the makes it unusable for a long time. There are couple of ways to check the soil to see if its tractor and planting ready, the one I liked was simple: squeeze the soil in your hand, if you can get water to come out, its too wet.

Our tractor introduction was brief and there will be more to come, but my comprehension of how we use machines to make the work more is efficint is much better already. So the tractor below is the one we'll be using and I have no idea who that guy is.
Some things planned for the rest of this week: putting up electric fences, tractor lessons, potting up more celeriac, de-green onions, learn how to take care of the chickens and de-rope the spreader.

Off to the cabin for dinner...