June 20, 2009: Week 4

It was raining on Saturday when I arrived at Mud Creek and I wondered what I would be doing. I mean, how much does the rain put off farming duties? Anyway, I immediately got my hands dirty as I filtered the dried horse manure to make potting soil. I took out the large clumps and sticks and rocks (I am still unsure it was only horse manure) and mixed it with the soil with the white dots in a wheelbarrow. Then we added dried blood, jersey Green sand and something else, and mixed it well. Next came the water and it was ready to for filling the seed containers. We were planting rutabagas from seeds. Initially we were going to plant over 600 rutabagas and then Erin re-considered trimming down the numbers for a proposed yield of 2-3 rutabagas for 2-3 weeks in October. Similar to my ignorance about the kohlrabi vegetable, I have no idea what a rutabaga is, and yet I am very excited. (Hey! I have no idea what this is, but I'm growing it anyway!). After the seed planting, we de-cluttered the greenhouse a bit, and cleaned the floor of walk-in cooler of dirt and water. Erin tried to plant cucumbers from seed, but the rain just would not let up, and came right back to the greenhouse. She told me that walking on soil would compact it down, and if the sun dried up the footprints, the soil would be flattened, making water difficult to seep down. Seems reasonable enough.