Comment/Response? 
Daily activities of the owner of a 20 acre Organic Farm plus
observations, notes, and comments on a wide variety of topics.
| 1 | Built the frame for the north bay of shelves in our greenhouse . |
| 2 | Hung the storm door on the greenhouse. |
| 3 | Disked the East Fairway. Our son got married in South Bend, IN. |
| 4 | Day after wedding stuff to do. |
| 5 | Disked the East Fairway
again. Framed in roof vents and base vents on the greenhouse. Brought up seedling onions from basement greenhouse and started hardening them off. |
| 6 | Finished framing base vents
on the greenhouse. Dug up onion sets - onions which had been planted last season but didn't do much. This spring they looked healthy, so I'm moving them to rows in a different field. |
| 7 | Set out 1 row of onions in
the East Fairway. Ripped and routed boards for battens to hold down the greenhouse plastic covering. |
| 8 | Planted the rest of the seed onions in the East Fairway and bought 400 more onion sets. |
| 9 | Put the plastic cover on the greenhouse south, north and east sides. |
| 10 | Put the plastic cover on the greenhouse west side. |
| 11 | Added second row of battens to secure greenhouse plastic covering. Hooked up electrical power to the greenhouse. |
| 12 | Built the greenhouse roof windows and made a heating enclosure out of the south bay of shelving. Rather than having to heat the entire greenhouse at night, a Heating Enclosure is an area partitioned off inside the greenhouse which can be heated at a lower cost. Set up max/min thermometer to make sure the temperature in the Heating Enclosure doesn't fall too low. |
| 13 | Last night's temperature
test in the greenhouse went fine - lowest temp was 40'. I set the heater up a touch
to aim for a low of 45'. I set up a water barrel with pump and hose and a potting bench in the greenhouse. Disked the Grapes SW field to get ready for planting peas. |
| 14 | Planted peas in the Grapes
SW Field. Fixed a broken roof window on the greenhouse - I had not anticipated a roof window blowing open from a wind gust. The window flew open too much and the leverage on the hinges was too much. Re-potted 3 flats of tomatoes in the greenhouse. |
| 15 | Brought all tomato flats from the basement greenhouse and arranged in the outside greenhouse Heating Enclosure. Wired the lights in the greenhouse. |
| 16 | Built another greenhouse
roof vent. This ended the construction phase of the greenhouse project. Re-potted several flats of tomatoes. Based on my needs for tomato plants on the farm, I calculate how many plants I can sell rather than keep for myself. The plants for sale are potted in 4" plastic pots for sale at our Roadside Stand starting May 1. |
| 17 | Re-potted many tomatoes. Bought a 50# bag of each of the following types of seed potatoes: redsn russets, Yukon Gold |
| 18 | Finished re-potting
tomatoes. Cut the 150# of seed potatoes into chunks with at least 2 eyes each. Disked many of the fields. |
| 19 | Planted 500ft of potato rows. |
| 20 | Finished planting potatoes. Started planting greens. |
| 21 | Moved 4 rows of onions from
last year's field to fill in the space in the potato field. Disked the family garden. |
| 22 | Moved all the tomatoes in the greenhouse to the south shelves to get better sunlight. Moved more onions to the potato field. |
| 23 | Hooked up water supply line from the house to the greenhouse and outside hoses. |
| 24 | Planted 120ft of ornamental sunflowers for cut flowers. In the greenhouse, re-potted rosemary and lavender in single flower pots. |
| 25 | Finished moving the last of the oinions from last year. Re-potted pepper plants. |
| 26 | Re-potted more pepper plants as well as coleus plants. Bought wood to build the farm stand again. |
| 27 | Disked most fields. Repotted more peppers. |
| 28 | Repotted herbs into
individual containers for sale. The greenhouse seems to be functioning quite well - all plants are thriving and layout seems to be efficient. |
| 29 | Made 3 carriers for moving plants from the greenhouse to the roadside stand and to the farmers market. I used 48" wide 16" deep 1/2" plywood and cut holes for the 4" flower pots. I cut 3 of the remaining greenhouse floor blocks inside the door so I could roll a cart in and out of the greenhouse without hitting bumps from gaps of missing floor blocks. |
| 30 | Gathered materials to build our roadside farm stand. |
Comment/Response? 