Willee's in Canada, and I didn't have anybody to watch Alex, so I took him to doggy daycare at Cascade, so I could go to the farm. I dropped him at 7 and made it out there before 8. Passed Norm on the highway, as he took Adriana to school.
As I drove in, I saw Bushra working in the field next to the driveway. She taught me all about drip tape. This photo shows her connecting the pieces that go out to the crops to the piece that connects them to the hose.
These pieces have small holes in them, and the water very slowly drips out onto the plants.
Flea beetles have been a big problem lately. They have been eating holes in the leaves of many plants, espcially the kohlrabi. Bushra found a recipe online for a natural insecticide that uses garlic. So, next, she went to mix up a batch of that while Matt, Mark and I hoe-ed in the first garden next to the front yard. While we were hoe-ing, I thought Mark was listening to music, and I asked him what he was listening to, and he said a book on tape, Walden. How pertinent!
Mark and Matt try to figure out how to fix the sprayer, so Bushra can use it to apply her natural insectide.
Norm asked me to make up several jugs of a sticky substance that attracts bugs and then traps them. Starting with a milk jug, you add 1 banana peel, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of apple cidar vinegar and then fill the jug halfway up with water.
When I finished making that up, I helped Bushra dig thistles in the yard.
We took our lunch break, and of course, I had to check on the chicks!
Before I went back to join the others, I noticed a big patch of thistles up by the chicken coop that I decided needing digging up.
Mark and Bushra helped me haul the bug trap jugs up to the apple trees. There were some wire hooks on the tree fencing, where we hung the jugs.
On our walk back down to the gardens, we walked past the area where the guys had put in the new fence posts. They're solid and beautiful!
It was time to move the drip tapes, so Bushra and I did that together. We detached the individual pieces from the header piece, and with each of us at opposite ends of the garden, we lifted each drip tape over to its new row, until they were all in place. Then, we reattached the header piece and turned on the hose. The photo above shows the new location of the drip tape, and in the upper right hand corner, you can see where it used to be (the wet areas).
Bushra then went to make up another batch of natural insecticide, and Norm gave me the job of thinning seedlings in the greenhouse and what was on the hay wagon, tomatoes and peppers. It was hot in the greenhouse, but sitting right in front of these fans made it quite enjoyable.
Some of these tomatoes had not been thinned before, so it took a couple hours.
Next, I joined Matt, Mark and Bushra in the field, hoe-ing onions.
Here's Bushra up in the loft, getting row covers.
Matt and Bushra put a row cover on a crop.
The row covers let light and water through, but not the bugs!
We were supposed to be hoe-ing the onions, but we hand weeded instead, because the onions looked just like the grass that was growing around them. Can you pick out the onion in amongst the grass?
Matt was able to fix the sprayer, and Bushra loaded it up with her special recipe and sprayed the kohlrabis. I'm looking forward to hearing if it repelled those flea beetles.
Matt was able to use the hoe after a little hand weeding.
End of the day! Earlier, Norm had showed me where he had some excess lettuce and spinach and told me to take some home with me today. Isn't that spinch gorgeous? I picked Alex up at Cascade, and when we got home, I made myself a gorgeous salad out of this spinach, some lettuce, an avocado, some sunflower seeds and some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was so good!
