One of the best bits of information we came home with from the Mother Earth News Fair was that we could wait a little longer before planting our garlic.   The other thing we had re-enforced was that we needed to get the seed garlic ready the day before.  No earlier.  That makes our upcoming project a three day event.  Thank goodness Ron and I both have taken next Friday off.   Fingers are crossed the current weather prediction for our area holds.

In order to get ready (mostly) we had to dig up and sift at least one more 56 foot long row.

We started last Saturday morning, Oct 1st at slightly later than crack o’dawn.  Now that fall is heading our way, the sun isn’t up as soon as we are.  No sense in heading to THF in the dark.  Brother-in-law Don was planning to join us again.  He really does like it out there in Augusta.

Ron and Jo got our ball of string out and marked out the new row. While they did that, I decided to pick up the surface rocks before we got our set up started.  They joined in and we quickly had the wheelbarrow filed.

Now it was time for the real work and we dove right in to it.  Don arrived about 9:30 am and we quickly hit our stride.  It was perfect weather for working, cooler with overcast skies.  The hit is always what kills us and last week it was the wind too.

Major surprise when brother-in-law John showed up too.  He grabbed a shovel and the dirt started to fly.  I was in charge of unloading the wheelbarrow again.  Don helped me get it down the row each time as I was going backwards with it.  Getting the thing turned around in tight quarters is not easy.  I had my trusty pedometer with me again and by the end of the day I had logged 17,377 steps.  So much better that a gym membership.

At 2 pm, we were beat and hungry.  I had brought hot dogs to cook on the grill and while I got them going, the rest of the crew made a dent at equipment breakdown.   That is one of our least favorite parts of the this venture.   We ate our late lunch and rested while the boys talked future plans.

We are still finding huge rocks in our field.  Even though we are only digging down a shovel’s length, they have to be dug out.

Sunday was a  no work day.  Jo had come down with my cold and it was supposed to be rainy.  The plan was to wait and go out later in the day, but that didn’t happen.  A wasted day in Ron’s opinion.  So the plan now was to put in a few hours after work each day.

Luckily Don was more than willing to stick this out with us.  Ron headed home each day and got Jo and something for a quick dinner.   I was always the one late to the party.

We lucked out the with weather again on Tuesday and left for home well satisfied with our progress.

Wednesday we were back out there again.  Our pile of rocks is growing by leaps and bounds.  We are again limited by the day light.  We have to stop working; leaving ourselves enough time to safely breakdown everything.  I refuse to agree with Ron’s suggestion that we start using headlamps.

Thursday was harder.  We suddenly had summer temps to deal with.  But we only had 5 more feet to go and were determined to finish it off.  Do or die.  And those few hours almost did kill us.

And there we are.  Three rows done and ready for planting.  With compost, azomite rock dust, and a earth friendly, all purpose organic fertilizer added in.  Well seasoned cow manure will come later.  Again, our friend Dick is going to come through with that for us.

Of course we are not really done yet.  We will plan to plant these rows and see what seed garlic we have left.  Then we will break out the tiller and do a quick, down and dirty row for the rest.  That is what we did last year and the garlic we pulled was fabulous.

It will be sure a relief to have this done.  Then we will be able to take a deep breath, rest for a day and then start on next thing.  I shudder to think what Ron will come up with.  I know that he has plans to keep the 3 of us busy with over the winter.  I think I will have to come up with a family schedule so I can book “me time” that he cannot override.

I foresee some battles in my future.  But you can bank on my winning.

Ron and Jo headed out to THF on Tuesday, the 13th to pull the mushroom logs out of their 4 hour soak.   On their way home they went straight instead of turning left as Ron needed gas in the wagon.  Jo just happened to spot someone out working in their own field.  She thought it looked like they were using a rock picker.  Ron agreed with her and he turned around and headed back.   By use of awkward sign language and his bright red Transit he managed to catch the attention of the driver.  Once the tractor was stopped, Ron climbed down into the 8 foot ditch and out the other side and across the field.  He then climbed up to the the cab of the tractor and once the driver opened the door said “I assume you are Mr Simmons?”   And he was, Mike Simmons to be exact and the son of the farmer Ron had already talked to about the fabulous rock picker he owned.   Out came the spiel and the long and short of it all was that Mike would meet Ron at THF in a few hours to look over the field and decide if he wanted the job.

Jo and Ron were both giddy when they got home.   A quick dinner and we waited for the phone to ring.  When it did, Ron headed out.  An hour later he called me.  Mike was already working on our field and Ron wanted to know if I needed  some shots of the process.

Of course, he didn’t have the camera with him so I got myself out the door and out to the farm with camera in hand.   Mike and his machine were hard at work scooping up rocks.  Very noisy it was too.  All that banging from rocks bouncing around in the hopper. He had already asked Ron if we had any neighbors that this would be a problem for.

His machine is quite cool.  He drives down the field until the hopper is full and then backs up to where our rock pile will be and dumps them.  We watched for about 30 minutes and then walked back to our cars and headed home.  Ron was delighted that once again his theory about karma played out.

Mike was back out again the next night.  We have so many rocks in that field, one day was simply not going to make much of a dent.

The number of hours that it would have taken us to make this pile of rocks.  What with the digging, sifting and wheelbarrowing.  While this is this biggest pile Mike made for us, we have another one on the other side of the field.  Cannot see much of it as it is hidden by the trees and bushes.

Don and John joined us again on Saturday as we made the final push to get a second row ready for garlic planting.  It was the perfect work day.  Sunny but with steady breeze that kept it cool.  The sun had come out and we tried to use our canopy again, but that was a no go.  The wind was just too strong.  We kept getting whacked by the poles that were supposed to be holding up the canvas top.  

With John manning the shovel, we flew through the last stages.  All of us were hungry and tired, but Ron didn’t want to take a break until we were actually done.  We still had to haul the compost from the pile and get it spread over each row.  Time for the 4 wheeler to get into the action.  Jo, John and Don filled the buckets and loaded them onto the trailer.

Ron drove them across the field and I dumped them into place.  Once again those empty cat litter containers came in so handy.  They make the best buckets.

And there we are.  Two rows done and we are ready for planting early next month. So happy to have this part of the project done.

NEWS FLASH – Ron is such a liar.  He started out saying we needing one row for our 2017 garlic.  He said we just needed to keep going to get other rows ready for the following years.  So we got two rows done and we should be finished, right?  Oh no, he ordered more garlic.  Wanted to have one more variety growing.  Last night we ran the numbers and imagine my delight as we figured out we needed not one but two more rows just to get everything planted next month.

He may end up buried out at THF.  Wonder how the garlic would grow with him as fertilizer?

It is going to be a long fall this year.  Ron plans on the 3 of us working until the snow flies.  He wants us to get a total of 5 rows ready for garlic planting.   We are only using one row this year and will then be rotating between them, but he figures the sooner we get them done, the less work we have to do next year. Personally I am hoping for an early winter.

Last Saturday Jo took her shot at shoveling and found out pretty quickly that it is seriously hard work.  I like taking the pick ax and breaking the dirt up first.  I find that cathartic and it certainly burns off the calories.  The whole process is great exercise but it is also very noisy. No conversations to make the work go by faster.  We have to use hand signals to communicate.  But Ron’s sifter does a good job of getting out the rocks.  We end up with lots of worms too.  Have to wonder what they are thinking.  First they are dug up and tossed into a bucket, then dropped onto a contraption that is constantly shaking.  Must feel like an earthquake to them.  We try to grab them up and drop them into the dirt, but sometimes we miss and they go right through the grid.  I try very hard not to squish them against the grate.  Yuck.

Depending on the heat index, it takes the 3 of us two days to get half way through each row.   So we need at least a solid weekend to get one done.

Exhausted work crew so ready to head home.  I came up with fabulously smart idea of using our slightly beat up canopy as shade.  Took a little maneuvering to get it to cover our working area and three of us, but let me tell you, that helped a lot.  Reduced the temp by about 10 to  15 degrees.  We were able to get at least an hour more in.   Then it was home for a welcome shower and clean clothes.

Friday I headed out to THF with Ron and Jo to do a final cleaning on a batch of our mushroom logs.  They had already been out twice that week and come home with pounds of shiitakes.  Made for some happy friends at work.  We were now just going to get whatever is let and dehydrate them.  I still have to find some recipes to use them in.  That will come this winter when I have a bit more free time.

This is why Ron is using plastic pallets to stack his logs.  Every time it rains, we end up dealing with this.

Jo and I tacked the job of getting the logs out of their 4 hour soak.  I make no attempt at keeping track of what the two of them are doing.  The logs are all numbered and they have charts and schedules and it all more than I want to be involved in.

You can see the all rocks on the right side where we dumped them in our efforts to make it a bit dryer and safer for our travels back and forth.   And can certainly see that we have a lot more work to do.  Ron would really love to have a bridge though.  Anyone out there have the know-how to build a good one, on the cheap?  No wood, of course as that will rot real quick.

The last step in mushroom harvesting.  This involves the generator and air compressor.  Ron blows the dirt and any stray bugs off and tosses them into a basket to carry home.  It generally is a two person job.  Like most things on THF.  It is after all, our family adventure.

After our long day on Saturday, about 4 hours working on THF and then more hours spent at the NY State Fair (my pedometer showed me having walked 16,611 steps), we were just about done with our planting row.  One more push on Sunday should do the trick.

So there we were once again, at THF about 7 am getting unloaded and ready for work.

For this project we need the sifter, the generator, extension cord, shovels, gloves, hats, pick ax, wheel barrow, and for me, bug spray from now on.  I have come home with numerous bites over the past few weeks.  Enough is enough.

We lucked out with the weather.  Overcast again so it wasn’t too hot.  And the breeze came and went just enough to cool us off when needed.  Still it was hard work.  Because we are always trying to make it easier to get the work done,  I thought of what I hoped would be a more efficient way of getting the dirt into the sifter.  We started to half fill some buckets and then dump them into the sifter.  It was easier than tossing each shovelful onto the sifter.  Jo was in charge of lifting the buckets of dirt, so she got a really good workout.    I did a lot of the wheel barrow work.  Taking loads of rocks to our  current tiny house.  We are looking to surround it with rocks.  It will look nicer and hopefully keep some of the bugs and critters away.

We had a good routine going and charged through the rest of the row.  And what a relief it was to be done.

You can just barely make it out, but Ron is holding up one finger on  right hand and five  on the left.  That means we are done with one row and have five more to go.   He has plans of expansion, you see.  This whole section he wants to be full of garlic in years to come.  So that means lots more rock picking and soil sifting for us.  And anyone else we can talk into helping us.   Just remember we feed our workers well.  And a workout at THF is better than a gym membership.  You will not only burn off some serious calories, but you will have a pile of rocks to show for your efforts.  And you take then home with you too.