This past week has been really busy and really exciting.  First some of the starts are looking so great, showing off their cotyledons.

Next the sod cutter arrived and it was time to remove grass from plots 1 & 2, which are both 25′ x 50′ North-South oriented plots.  Plot 3, which is 100′ x 50′ is gonna have to wait a couple weeks.

We were really lucky and got great weather for the epic sod cutting event.  Turns out cutting the sod (when you have the right equipment) isn’t so bad.  It is removing the sod that is bad.

Lucky for us, our neighbor has a tractor and let us borrow it.  I was using the wheelbarrow method the day before, and I can tell you that the tractor is the correct equipment for the job.

Before TILLING could happen we needed to get a tiller.  This would be my first big farm purchase (besides the actual farm) and I did a lot of research and the survey clearly said BCS!.  We drove up to Carl’s mower and saw in Ferndale and had a great time working with Jordan, who hooked us up with a dreamy BCS 739 with 30″ tiller and hiller / furrower attachment.  And it fit in our Rav4, Gandalf (because it takes us on magical adventures)!

I also prepped a planting template of 6″ on center holes for burning into landscape fabric.  This is necessary to control weeds since I don’t have enough time to do proper stale seedbed prep with most of the beds, including the “OG” plot, which is the only dedicated garden space existing at the farm.   The good news is that these heavy duty landscape fabric bed covers will last for many seasons.  I used this template to plant onion sets and will use it to plant lettuce and spinach too.

Tomorrow will find me starting more seedling flats in the nursery, tilling plot 1, and/or working on more landscape fabric templates.  It’s really exciting to get my hands in the dirt (and what beautiful dirt it is) and get this dream off the ground.  Among many books, for the last year, I’ve been digesting Jean-Martin Fortier’s ” The Market Gardener” and Curtis Stone’s “The Urban Farmer.”  These books have been so helpful in figuring out how to get a lot of production going on a small scale.  I’d particularly like to thank Curtis for his excellent urban farmer series on youtube, which is where the template idea comes from.  I look forward to not weeding as much as I would be!