.....expanding our produce field

It's been an real busy week here at the farm. After several years of testing the field for what may grow best.....or not......we are gearing up to do the ground crops finally.

The past few days I have been taking down an fence in preparation of expanding the growing field. Yes...the same fence that keeps the three trouble makers from eating my apples. Eating my drip lines. Eating just about whatever they can .... just to be full of mischief. Yes.....I am talking about our lovely horses.

Take note that I test just about everything before implementing whatever it may be...before doing it on a grand scale. So much cheaper are the mistakes of testing. The first year here at the farm....I jumped into planting an hillside of limes. What can go wrong with limes, right?

You wont see limes at our fruit stand......

So test.....and test. I know that from testing that we are bout to have the sweetish tomatoes this town has ever seen. Know also that our variety of squashes will be extremely rich in flavor. Farmer Deno has an whole list of tested crops. That lower field is bout to be plowed this weekend for the new produce field. Relocated fence is nearly up too. Three horses are upset that they lost some of their sacred ground. .....and now they will really be dishing out the mischief.

Did I say plow? We don't like to disturb the soil here at the farm unless we really have to. Part of sustainable farming is about management of the soil.  We do plow once and that's it......never again.The planting rows are done by hand. Then we apply drip tape for irrigation.....and finally the plastic mulch which keeps the weeds out and retains water as much as 40%