Today we planted watermelon (suika) seedlings. This is a major undertaking because the plants need to be carefully protected and nurtured. After plowing the upper field again, we smoothed out a 4 meter wide row and lay down plastic sheets for controlling the weeds. In order to keep the weeds down, we are sure to use old plastic with many holes already in it! The wind was blowing strongly and it was a three person job just to hold the plastic and get some dirt dumped on it to anchor it. Of course, dumping dirt on top of the sheet will just give the weeds one more place to grow - but hey, I'm not the farm expert, I just follow orders.
We carefully measured the width of the hoops that will make a small frame over the plants and laid out the string and then placed the hoops down the row. One sheet of new clear plastic was attached to the west side, not covering the hoops but just on the sides. I have no explanation for this except that we don't have plastic that is wide enough to cover the hoops in one piece. We cut little pieces of old fertilizer bags in squares, place that over the plastic and attach a little plastic thingy to secure the sheet to the hoop. Metal anchors are pounded into the ground at intervals and through the loops in the top of the anchors we thread metal poles. It is to these horizontal poles on the ground that we will loop a vinyl strap up and down the row to keep the vinyl sheet over the hoops from blowing around. Of course, we do not use straight poles. These metal poles are recycled from an old greenhouse frame so they are not straight, they have dangerous rusted ends and there were not enough of them to create lines along the length of our field! Oh well.
The little plants were placed at 1.3 meter intervals down the row. We finally secured plastic sheeting over the rest of the hoops, anchored it all with dirt on the ends, strung the cord zig zag up and down the row to hold it all in place and dug a water canal around the entire structure for drainage.
Summation: much more trouble than it's worth.
Continued to weed: tackled the weeds around the onion field and fertilized between the rows. Scraped weeds in my own garden until it got too chilly to be outdoors. Planted tomatoes, peppers and basil and corn in the little area next to the dog where I dug up all the bad grass. I wanted to put a tree there but we never made it to the tree auction and now it is too late to plant trees - next winter, maybe.
2 comments:
Oh the trials of growing one's own! No wonder people leave the countryside. One never has trouble procuring a watermelon from the store. I was wondering, why not make the hoops from bamboo? Seems like the organic thing to do. I recently discovered your blog and find it humorous and informative.
I agree with you. We have some bamboo hoops and they are more organic although their size and shape is less consistent. It is a lot of work to split the bamboo and shape it so it holds and doesn't spring back, so most people have taken to reusable plastic coated metal forms. We do generate too much waste - farmers have a lot of plastic junk piled around. We try to recycle clothes into plant ties, use bamboo stakes and straw but we also use modern conveniences.
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