The beds are done, the lawn is raked, the rhubarb is planted, and we're exhausted!

After our long day of farming on Saturday, I took Mike out to dinner at a brew pub. I also brought my farm notebook and seed catalog, so that we could figure out exactly what I'll be planting in my beds. I've been having trouble figuring out how to plan out the beds - I just don't know how much space each type of vegetable needs, versus how many seeds I have. We had an incredibly productive dinner - so much so, that I'm pretty sure our waitress thought that it was a business meeting rather than a date. Now all of the beds are planned out, and I realized that I needed to buy a few more types of veggies and flowers. This morning, I finished planning out the planting schedule, which hopefully will start next weekend, as long as it doesn't rain. If it does, then I'll just be doing massive planting Memorial Day weekend, followed by squash and the other warm weather plants in early June.

We definitely used the tractor rental to the max this weekend. We were up again early this morning, to try to rake the east side of the lawn (where the squash is going to go), and to try to clear out the rocks that prevented us from being able to mow that area last year. I'm planning on covering most of it with squash, but I'd like to be able to mow it before we plant the squash to cut down on bugs, voles, and the general jungle appearance that our yard took on last summer. It was not easy, especially because it rained all morning. But we're tough farmers. With workboots and carhartts. That's right, I now have my very own work boots. I'm still wearing Mike's carhartts, though. Baby steps.

Mike went over the area with the tractor and rake, and I followed along picking up rocks, or helpfully pointing to the ones that were too heavy for me to pick up.Below is our final pile of rocks (in front of our partially completed, totally random, rock wall. We still have no idea what to do with that.). I'm sure that there are still rocks buried out there, but at least we know have the area to a mowable state. We also discovered that the soil out there is really sandy, which was a bit of a bummer for my squash plans. So now I think I'll make piles of manure on top of the sand, and then plant the squash seeds in the hills.

I was so glad that we finished the raking of the east side of the yard yesterday, because we ended up getting quite a bit of rain today, so now that entire side of the house looks like a giant, muddy slip and slide. This actually ended up being fantastic for Mike. We had a delivery of manure this morning, and because of the mud, the dump truck carrying the manure got stuck. So Mike got to tow it out with his truck. I think it may have been one of the best moments of his life. I didn't get any picture of the towing, because I was afraid that would scare off the manure guy and I'm sure we'll need more at some point.

We had to return the tractor by 1, so after much cleaning and rangling of the tractor to get it back on the trailer, we headed off to Windham. On the way home, we stopped at Skillins, to get the final seeds that we wanted, pick up a couple more rhubarb plants, and look into asparagus and potatoes. I was glad that we went there, because after talking with the saleswoman, we decided to reduce the number of asparagus beds from two to one, and to have two potato beds instead. They had about six different kinds of seed potatoes, so we got enough Yukon Golds for one bed, and then decided that for the other bed, we'd do a mix. So we got a few of each of the kinds of potatoes that they had, and didn't write down any of the names. When I go back next weekend, as I'm sure I will, I need to remember to find out what we bought so that we have at least some clue what we're planting.

Then, when we got home, I planted our first crop! My mom brought over some of her rhubarb last weekend, and I wanted to get it out of the plastic buckets and into the ground. I was glad that we had the raised beds, because it meant that while I was walking in our giant mud pit, I was only packing down the walkways in the garden rather than the beds.

Back inside, we re-arranged the seedlings so that we can customize their lights a little better, since the tomato plants are so much taller than the rest. Now we have the tomatoes all at the front of the table, and then the rest are further back so that we can lower the lights for them. I also gave the seedlings another watering, as they were looking a little dry. This next part might sound a little ridiculous, but I also set up a small fan in the office for them. I'm exercising their stems for outside! Finally, Taperman has found his camera, so hopefully we'll all see new pictures of the chicks soon! Hint, hint...