Beginning to look a lot like....A Farm!

We are beginning to enjoy the delicious and delicate bites of Small Step! Some current harvests include amaranth microgreens and chervil, crisp heads of lettuce and edible flowers and soon there will be arugala, radish, scallion, cilantro, fennel, new potatoes..... 

The fields are now all outfitted with raised beds, and drip irrigation is successfully wetting down all our plant's roots! There were a few friends that gave a very helpful hand in lying down all the irrigation tape, a big thanks to that! To-do's like this are simple but so time consuming, it is always relieving to have the extra people to make the job faster and the work day shorter.

Biodegradable black plastic is going on our big field this week, with all the warm weather transplants- field tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, melons, cucs and squash! Hopefully the June frosts will stay away!

Tomatoes are fruiting on all the plants in the hoophouse, the sure sign that summer is here (well, along with the 94 degree weather we had this past week)!

We planted a dozen potato seeds in early spring, the purple flowers are beautiful. It was a small trial that I think will expand next year, the potatoes grew fast and are quite tasty!

The Nasturtiums are all blooming against the back endwall, they will be for sale independently and within the edible flower mix.

And, a dozen early cucs and zucchini are flowering a fruiting in an outer bed. They will be harvested for the next few weeks then replaced by basil to accompany the summer tomatoes. 

To help us water in all the field transplants (our soil = sand) we now have a 110 gallon water tank for the tractor! No more hand watering! Just a quick pass with the 'ol Oliver! Thank you Yestermorrow! Yestermorrow Design/Build School is located just across the street from Small Step Farm. This past weekend they held a welding class and one of the instructors happened to be Benjamin Cheney, a builder/welder/and more who Zach has collaborated with on past projects. The welding class consisted two full days. Saturday learning the basics, and Sunday constructing a steel frame for our water tank! In addition, they also built us a toolbar which will now cultivate the walkways, hill potatoes and leeks and allow lots of other mechanical experimentation (down with the hoes!) 

      

As any farmer knows, things break. Then, you need to fix them! Below is the hydraulics of the Oliver tractor- busted! You can see that Zach was really excited about this job. But, four days later with much help from a local Warren oldtimer.... the tractor's hydraulics are repaired! Thank you Francis!