Wet Weather = Weeds

I just thought this picture was nice from the kitchen porch in the evening light. (Who doesn't like to look out the window and see their husband weeding in the low sunlight surrounded by green?) All of this rain has helped with irrigation and collecting water for later, but as it helps the plants grow, it also encourages the weeds. This evening was finally nice enough to weed without making mud. The angled hoe (I call it the butterfly scraper) is a favorite for scratching the surface before weeds get too big, especially as bending over gets more difficult! To weed each row, the row cover has to be lifted, the weeds uprooted, and then the cover put back. It is most difficult now as the plants are not well established yet and chances of injuring them are greater.

Chick update: 5 weeks

The chicks have lost most of their cute fluff but maintain their youthful "peep peep" calls. They are different shades of black and white and some of them have small red combs already. They now have access to a little yard so they can scratch in the fresh grass, although they still prefer the safety of the coop most of the time. They all seem healthy and I believe every once in a while I can see them smile?! (I think in this picture I startled them.)

Rain Barrel

Irrigation manifold

Back in February I wrote a post about my goals for irrigation. It was dry here last week and the transplants desperately needed water so irrigation is at the top of my chore list every night. I decided to put in a main line and a series of manifolds for my low pressure water system. The rows in the garden are 50 to 80 feet long and I will water 5 rows with each manifold. The water source is 300 gallons of collected rain water and the system is gravity fed from the holding tanks. My initial calculations are roughly 120 gallons of water per row when the plants are full size, that is two full tanks of water per manifold (zone) each week. I will need to find a way to fill those tanks with a shallow well to assist the little rain we get in July and August.

Collecting rain water from the shed roof