We’re spending more and more time at the new land these days. This week was particularly important because we had a few key things we wanted to get done before the rain officially begins (where is it, anyway?). First, we had to get some dry space, so we built a shed. Here’s a picture of the ‘finished’ product:
I put ‘finished’ in quotes because it really isn’t finished at all. The roof is a temporary measure—a tarp, which should last us long enough. And the siding is only plywood for now. We like to think of the shed as being in its ‘underwear,’ and soon enough we’ll give its real clothing: actual siding and roofing. But it’s something.
We also started working the field. On Wednesday we sowed oats and fava beans as a cover crop for the winter. Here’s a picture of Katie lightly disking in the seeds (to cover them) with Houdini, our new tractor.
And yesterday, we planted our garlic!!!!!! Very very very exciting, since we love garlic so much and were sad to not have it this year. We planted five 200′ beds, with six different varieties—approximately 6,000 cloves total (which could become 6,000 bulbs next year). Our friend Molly helped us, which made it that much more fun:
The garlic is the first thing we’ve planted at the new land. Yay! In the process of planting, we also discovered that we love our new rototiller. It’s a behemoth implement—solid, heavy and old. But it performed beautifully. And since our topsoil goes down deep, we were able to till deep indeed. The ground was amazing. We are in love. The tiller in action:
That’s all the news for now!
