Sunday, August 28, 2011

The state of the garlic fields

We've done multiple passes with the tine cultivator to pull out the quack. I would venture that quack and horse nettle are our two most aggressive invasives in our fields. We essentially utilized the stale seedbed program all summer but a couple of weeks ago, we did a final hand-weed and then seeded with covers.




Bill hand weeding Field #1

Field #1 got buckwheat

Field #2 and #3 got a green manure mix




Field peas, oats and hairy vetch

Sowing the manure mix brought our first experience with using an inoculant. We utilized the slurry method which was startling to us both with how well it worked!

We poured the seed mix into a trug. (I can not recommend trugs enough. I've used them for everything from harvesting, washing, carrying gear, and mixing inoculant.)


We then sprinkled the half of the inoculant packet over the seeds and sprinkled about 3 oz of water (from our water jug from the cooler) and using our hands we stirred the seeds around. The black inoculant spread evenly thru the seed and the seed remained dry enough to still be spread through our hand spreader.



Seeds in the trug



The teeny black specks are the inoculant




This is Field #1 with the buckwheat barely sprouting. I hope it hurries up! It has a lot of weed seeds that need to be smothered.



I recently harvested the onions from the farm garden. I bought these on a whim all dried and half sprouted in June from the bargain bin of the local Cuba City grocery store. We planted them as an experiment and we got about 100 (smallish) onions from our efforts. They are curing in the barn. This little experiment has us dreaming us all of the onion varieties we will grow next year!



Lovin' those bread trays

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Ag/Wood Shop

The shop foundation is poured, insulted and back-filled due to some long work days of Bill.


We recently got the containers delivered. These are going to be the sides of the shop with a space between the two which will get framed out. Roof trusses will span the empty area between and overhand the containers to create a building.
















It was pretty unnerving as the semi had to back down a portion of the driveway, back past the barn and continue down the shop road.






I've been canning and jamming.












We are also now official TV free!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

New G's

Sparky got some new friends.




We purchased two Allis Chalmers Model G's. These tractors were manufactured in the late 40's thru the early 50's for small farms. They have a creeper gear and the belly mounted implements allow the farmer to see exactly where the implements are in the soil. They hold their value well and are still very popular with market farmers.






I found two for sale on Craig's List in Cuba City, WI. That is only ~20 miles from the farm so we went over and took a look. We've been driving past this farm for months and watching their hoops, goats, chickens and the G's. So when we saw they were for sale we decided to pursue them. One runs fine and one doesn't run at all. Two cultivators were also included in the package. We eventually hope to convert the non-working one to an electric version.



We don't really need two more tractors, but we decided that if we don't like them or if they don't work out well for us we can always sell them.