Rough Patch

The challenges continue as I prep by beds for planting.  After the rude awakening that was flail mowing, followed by a not-much-better experience with tilling, I thought that perhaps the hard part was done and that I was getting the hang of this farming with machines thing.  I was wrong.  Last Saturday, I was at the farm from 8 a.m. to nearly 4 p.m. with no lunch break -- first in lecture, then learning to add nutrients to the plot, stepping up seedlings in the nursery, and finally... dun dun dun... rotary plowing.

Talk about hitting a rough patch.  Whether it was because my tilling job was so crappy or because I'm just not quite the right size for the BCS machine, this was the most physically demanding task yet.  The machine kept hitting patches of hard, hard soil and wanted to run right.  Coach Jay had to pull the BCS from the front to keep it from running in madly crooked lines.  Even with the help, my beds still ended up looking like this:

This may be hard to see, but especially at the other end, the bed on the left gets really skinny.  It's not my proudest moment, but I was so hot and hungry and tired that I had to call it quits and call it a day.  I was one of only 3 students left that day.  Even though some of my classmates were working in pairs or were bigger, stronger, and more experienced, I still felt like I should've been able to do a better job.  I felt really discouraged and upset at my inability to be good at this.  I went home and complained to my husband, and he sweetly offered to go to the farm to help me shovel out my aisles and pretty up the beds.  They still looked pretty ugly and crooked after we finished.  That soil was rock hard and nearly impossible to manipulate with shovels.  I just hope I can grow stuff in there.

This is after shoveling.  Can you tell ANY difference?!

On the bright side, I think my nursery skills are coming along.  I really enjoy working with the seedlings and learning how to care for them.  Although I didn't get as much germination as I would've like for some plants (especially the Swiss Chard), these guys turned out pretty well:

Half a tray of Swiss Chard (Bright Lights) and one tray of okra and two varieties of kale

One tray of two varieties of basil and some borage and marigolds

 I'll just keep plugging away and see what happens.  I really, really love learning everything I can and trying to apply it in my little container garden.  Hopefully my two beds are enough real estate for now to get me started in planting stuff in the ground.