June 9th was the big day! Eight hours and about 12,000 seeds is what it took to get the job done. We had about 8 helpers plus our family of 7 helping out.
So what does this event entail?
*Months ahead - Collecting soil samples and submitting to the UNR Cooperative Extension for soil testing. This tells us the condition of the soil, and then we can add compost or other things as needed.
*Also months ahead - Plowing and disking and dragging the field multiple times to prep the soil. We also added some compost to some poorer soil areas.
*Seeds are ordered ahead of time. My favorite companies for seeds are Main street seed, Harris Seeds, and Johnny's seeds. We are trying out some varieties of gourds this year, in addition to 9 varieties of pumpkins!
some unique looking seeds - swan gourd seeds!
*57 rows of drip line (each row in the front field is about 110 ft long and back field rows are about 200 feet long!) We set up the drip line before planting day, so that our water source is ready to go.
*We round up friends and our kids to team up and start planting at 8:00am
*All the seeds are planted by hand.
What a sense of accomplishment to get them all in the ground, then watch them grow! It's so exciting!
This year it was super windy and chilly in the morning. Not very ideal to have dirt and dust blowing in your face while you are digging holes for seeds! We survived though and got the job done.
A dirty face with a happy attitude! Love it!
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