Usually people associate Memorial Weekend with the honoring of veterans and the start of summer. The Oklahoma Baker's celebrated the long weekend with a lot of manual labor. As a result, Baker Heritage Farms is now on its way to being a productive farm.
This weekend was a busy weekend starting with a plot of land that has become quite the project - and ended with the first planting in the Test Garden. Saturday was spent getting the field fence up around the plot and Sunday the gate was put up and the field fencing completed.
There is enough room in the test plot for four sections of approximately 30 feet by 30 feet. Ample room for this late in the season.
Monday started off early with the tilling of four 120 foot planting beds (covering all four sections). Sweet Corn was planted in four 30 foot rows in Section 1 (northern section) and later in the afternoon Sun Flowers were planted along the outer edges of the corn. The rows were then covered with hay to act as green mulch. It is nice to be able to go out and cut what hay you need, but the bad part is - it has to be manually raked.
We had several advantages. If you have been following the blog, we have had problems with excess water in the test garden, but were able to eventually get the initial tilling done. Friday Donald mowed the new grown hay (ok, weeds) down as far as possible, and, as Eastern Oklahoma is once again running below normal rainfall, the ground had dried enough to make tilling much easier. Several years ago hard plastic water line was run from the house 300 feet down the back hill to the south end of what is now called the test plot. The water line was mounted on the fence about half-way down the length of the test garden. While pressure is not that great, at least there is water there.
While it does not seem like much, a lot was accomplished these past three days - and Donald and David are very sore. Something about (1) not much manual labor in the past several months, and (2) age.
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| Working in Section I of the Test Garden |
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| Planting Sunflower Seeds In Section I |
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| High Tech Farm Tools (including fishing poles) |
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| Putting down Green Mulch |
We plan on transplanting some tomatoes in Section 4, and planting cucumbers, watermelons, pumpkins, and onions in Sections 2 and 3 over the next few weeks. While we are at the end of the "normal" planting season, we feel lucky to have the corn finally planted.
Happy Memorial Weekend to everyone from a group of very tired, and sore, new farmers.
Blessings to all,
Baker Heritage Farms
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