Search This Blog

Friday, April 2, 2010

Chain gang?


Well not really a chain gang. It was potato planting time on the farm. We planted out potatoes the way my dad always did and he had good potatoes.We made a furrow with the rototiller, then someone goes behind and put the fertilizer in the row, someone else usually drags a chain thru the furrow to mix the fertilizer in with a small amount of soil and then you plant the potatoes and cover them over. So today with Jason here, and he always says I work him like a barrowed mule, today I did. He was the one putting in the fertilizer so he tole me to hook the truck chain to his belt and he would do both with one pass. Then I put the taters in and Rodger covered them up with dirt. So we have our potatoes planted. Later this evening we planted the fruit and nut trees that I had ordered. We had piled a good bunch of chicken manure and bedding near the orchard and used that to mix in with the dirt in the bottom of the hole and then set the trees in, watering and back filling each one. All 18 trees are in the new orchard. I still need to get some apple trees to put in there for a good variety of fruit in our little family orchard. All this done, we set the strawberries in the garden on the back side where they can run and spread all over. I also planted a few cabbage and some broccoli in the garden too. We got to try out the old hand tobacco setter that we got last summer at the big 127 yard sale. We have a pretty good start on the garden so far. I always have to draw a map so I know where we planted things and what varieties we plant so we can see what does best here. Like today we planted 4 different varieties of potatoes. There were some Pontiacs for early potatoes, Yukon Gold for storing, GoldRush for storing and some Purple flesh potatoes just because I could. I think I would be kinda neat to serve some purple mashed taters.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead..

Stella

2 comments:

Jen said...

Stelly,
You're making great progress. It is nice to have the help you do. It sure makes things go faster. I had to laugh at Jason...he lookin' like ya workin' him to def with the chains n' all...lol. ~Jen

stella said...

Hi Jen, aint he pitiful. lol Well it was his idea, he stood still an let me chain em. lol We have 3 rows of taters 150 ft long each so that should do us for a while.