We are a bit behind schedule you could say, but agriculture can be characterized by “better late than never!” Especially around here in the high desert where it can freeze, and even snow, in early June. I remember a frost on June 4 some years ago when many farmers who planted early lost their crops and had to plant again. I never have had that problem as I am always too busy to get land preparation and planting done “on time” (around May 15). The good news is that the crops, being acclimatized to my place and methods, always work with what they have and will hurry up if they need to…
Anyway, we got busy on getting the soil ready for planting. First we cut all the weeds and raked them up into piles. I was not able to take a photo of that step, but basically this plot of land you see above was cleared into 6 piles of weeds, each pile a bit too big to fit in a wheelbarrow. We piled the cut weeds in our compost bin and will turn them into soil for next year or the year after.
After the weeds were cut and cleared, we employed our BCS 8HP Tiller known as “FIERCE,” seen above on the left corner of the picture. We actually flooded this soil last Sunday and so much of the soil was nice and soft for tilling.
What a transformation tilling makes to the soil, now we can make the rows…
The rows are made with a hiller/furrower attachment for FIERCE that you may have seen in other posts. This method is really efficient and we reflect on one of our supporters who helped us in our initial years in our search to be efficient. Bread for the Journey provided us with the cutter bar attachment and the hiller/furrower attachment we use to clear and prepare fields almost ten years ago and this has been an incredible help to us in the years since…
Sol Feliz Farm 