To all those who have worked in field and garden bed--a hot soak in the tub with some epsom salts do wonders!!!
Yes Carrie, I got my tomatoes in; then dug a 20' trench to lay the drain tile for the down spout of the eave trough. Water has been going down through the flower bed. Eave trough is on the high side of the house--it's set in the hill. This should solve the soil washing through my flower bed. When I got the trench dug, DH "mentioned" that I could disc chisel if I wanted to. Well beans weren't planted yet-but I guess I "wanted" to. So I headed to last year's cornfield with the Case and Disc chisel[ATTACH=CONFIG]413945[/ATTACH]. This is similar to the piece I was using today. A moldboard plow digs into the ground and turns the soil over. The disc chisel first slices the ground with the metal discs and then the chisels dig into the dirt like heavy duty fingers. It's much narrower than a disc [ATTACH=CONFIG]413950[/ATTACH]so takes a while to go across the field. So for the next four hours I'm bouncing over the field while DH is seeding alfalfa in the field next to me with the seeder we brought home from our road trip last Friday[ATTACH=CONFIG]413948[/ATTACH]. There are 2 sets of rollers. The first rolls out all the lumps in the soil. The seed flows out of the red hoppers and the second set of rollers in the back firms to teeny tiny alfalfa seed into the ground. This is about the same width as the chisel plow, but he could drive faster as he was going over the soil and I was digging it up. Previously he had drilled in the peas and barley with a John Deere drill. [ATTACH=CONFIG]413949[/ATTACH] Those seeds are much larger so mechanics are sized for the bigger seeds. Later in early summer we will cut the peas and barley before the barley heads out and ensile it for the cows to eat. They love this sweet, tasty forage. The alfalfa will be short (3-5") when this happens. Once the grains are off the alfalfa continues to grow. Later in the summer we will cut the new alfalfa at least twice and put them into big square bales for animals to eat.
Okay enough for Ag 101--Spring Tillage and planting!
The field I was working once long ago was a farmstead. Always eerie when I work down there; like I'm working sacred ground. Inspired me to write a poem about it.
Oh Karen has put together another beautiful block; lucky you Janie!
Anael-hoping for the best for little Bram--
What a lovely fairy garden, Janie! (Cute kids, too.) Sure would be easier to care for than the big beds behind you.
Oh a Ben Franklin store--they were Walmarts of yesteryear but with lots of charm and you always found what you needed! Sorry it's closing QNS. Glad you have an outlet for your eggs. Nothing beats the sunny yellow of farm fresh eggs.
No QE, the puppies have been gone for quite some time--end of March. And yes GGal the soft soil is exactly what those dogs like. Not only that but my beds are set in the hillside. They can rest in a soft bed and look out onto the road--thrones fit for the Queen and King they think they are!! I have placed some old side delivery rake teeth across the tomato plants for now. Hopefully that works tonight. Not sure if we will get rain or not-wind has picked up now.
Time for this tired lady to head to bed. Another full day ahead. Guess what--no sewing today!! I miss my fix already.