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06/03/2009: "2009 Bean Project"

So, with all this equipment-related work, and infrastructure work, does any actual farming get done? Well, not a lot, frankly. But I have been working on a small dried bean planting down in the pasture; a couple hundred row-feet of dried beans. It's enough to give me some experience running the seeder, and setting up irrigation, weeding, and keeping tabs on the crop. Actually, it's not just beans: at this point I've also added a couple dozen winter squash plants, and I may still put in some dry corn.

The first step, of course, was tilling the plot; I did this a couple of weeks ago, when I prepared the north pasture plot for Lou. Next, I seeded using the Earthway hand seeder; I was wishing that I had ordered more than a half pound of seed, so I taped over half the dispensers so that the beans were planted every six inches instead of three inches. It meant that I had to keep a sharp eye on the apparatus as the beans were dispensed; there is a characteristic 'tinkle' sound that you hear as each bean rattles down the dispenser into the furrow, and I had to make up for any missing beans when I didn't hear the special noise.



With plenty of seeds the process could be more relaxed, and the seeder works better with more seeds in it. Note to self: buy more seeds next time. I watered in the seeds, which was quite an ordeal; I had to carry a six gallon container full of water down from the barn, and then pour carefully from a watering can along the furrow.

I didn't get back to the project for an intervening week, by which time the first sprouts were just emerging. Time to get busy with the irrigation! I didn't want to have to ask Lou or his family to do any watering, so I ordered some drip irrigation supplies from Berry Hill Irrigation in Virginia. I managed to get it laid out in approximate lengths one trip, working in the hot sun of late May. The real work was in getting the 1" irrigation hose unrolled and connected to the outbuilding water supply; I spent an hour at the local big box home improvement store putting together a kit to go from 3/4" garden hose to the barb joint that goes into the irrigation hose; I'm starting to get the hang of this, now that I have learned that a 3/4" machine thread is not the same as a 3/4" garden hose thread! My big innovation in this most recent iteration of plumbing design was to use a union joint; a union joint is a spendy galvanized component that allows you to connect its two end pieces to the pipes you're trying to join, rotate them into position, and then tighten down the joint by rotating the collar that brings the ends together. This meant that I didn't have to twist 220 feet of irrigation hose to tighten the connection onto the garden hose spigot!





By the next week nearly all the bean sprouts were up, and miraculously had not been eaten by crows. The beans were on to their second set of leaves, and doing well.



Since this picture was taken I've also planted the squash starts, which I started in 2 inch soil cubes in the basement. I have not been back yet to see how those are doing, but thankfully it's been an overcast week here; they should be doing OK if the drip irrigation continues working.