upside down sod

Thanks to our nice neighbor and his tractor, we now have three acres plowed up! The plow didn't turn up many rocks, which is a nice surprise.

The next step will be to drag a harrow through the fields, and try to even things out a bit. Pretty soon I'll need to start forming beds for onions, greens, and potatoes. I know it's going to be clumpy, but it's nice thinking about the big chunks of sod starting to break down under there right now. 

I've been thinking a lot about my mulching options lately, since it's clear I'm going to have some serious weeds to contend with - in the form of quackgrass and its creeping grass cousins. The plan is straw, straw and more straw.

 

the ongoing hoophouse adventure

Hoophouse construction is coming along (creeping along, but that's okay). Hoops and purlins are up. Baseboards are on. Next step is framing the end walls, which will be a good test of my (very) basic carpentry skills. Someday soon we might actually get to put the plastic on, and move my seedlings in there!

Meanwhile, the cold frames are crammed full of little plants - onions, leeks, scallions, parsley, kale - all doing nicely, but I'm running out of space. The cherry tomatoes are definitely ready for potting up to bigger pots now, so they'll soon be taking up lots more room. I better get to work and finally get this hoophouse done.

The oldest onions got bumped from the cold frames. They're quite happy outside today, toughening up a little.

green, green grass

Everywhere I look, it's green - the kind of green grass that makes me wish I were some kind of grazing animal.  It just looks delicious.

Actually, we're about to disturb a bunch of this lush greenery as we start preparing the fields for planting vegetables. I've been doing some digging around the new hoophouse, moving some stones out of the way, and the dark, soft soil actually looks pretty delicious too.

Hmm . . .  I wonder who lives in here?