May Weeding

Yes, Julia's laughing, not crying:)

The weekends have given us great weather for farming. Anna and Julia get in on the action for as long as Julia will last in the pack. A couple years ago it was Pieter on Anna's back, now we guide him out of the rows trying to avoid trampled broccoli and lettuce.  Most of the time he's pretty good about staying in between plants.

Some rows had enough weed pressure that the whole bed, vegetable seedlings and all, had to be turned under and replanted.

Drainage

We constructed hoop houses to get a jump on planting but they were too wet in April due to poor drainage. The three hoop houses are built about 4 feet apart and they are about 50 feet long. The three ditches I needed to dig felt like a lot of shoveling so I decided to use the tiniest excavator I could find.

Their was barely enough room for the machine but I am happy to say I did not ruin any plastic or hoops with an errant swing of the bucket

Chris relieved me after a couple hours of digging. He connected the ditches and is sending the water down hill.

Flame Weeding

Flame weeding is used to kill all of the newly sprouted weeds before they get large enough to compete with the planted vegetables. I am flaming the weeds in a bed that was planted a week ago. The lettuce seeds have not yet germinated and they are safe from the torch under the cover of soil.

I bought an inexpensive propane torch at a hardware store and every time I let go of the thumb trigger, the flame would go out. The torch is designed so that you open a flame adjustment valve on the handle to set the maximum flow of propane but the propane will not pass to the end of the torch until you push a thumb trigger. When you let go of the trigger, the torch is extinguished.

I pulled the thumb trigger apart and put a scar in the valve assembly so just a little propane will constantly leak past the trigger when the flame adjustment valve is open.  Now when I let go of the thumb trigger the torch stays lit and I don't have to reach for the striker at the end of each row.

When the lettuce finally pokes through the soil it will be greeted by a weed free seed bed.