After taking R to school in the morning I went looking online for who locally had a new tire for my bike and Target had one so I had @stryeyz pick it up on her lunch. With the new tire coming I needed to deal with the rusty chain. First I thought of moly grease then regular oil but in the end I found my bottle of Marvel lube oil and used that to coat the entire chain. After running it through the sprockets for a while the chain loosened up nicely. I squirted some in all the bearings and to my surprise the drive train is in fairly good working order.
After picking R up from school and getting the boys fed I headed out to the garden and finished tilling. I am pretty sure I got all the boulders this time but next year there will be more guaranteed.
With the tilling all done and the soil raked smooth I went and started up the irrigation only to find 2 pieces broken. The cap to the drip filter had broken and one of the valves had split its upper frame and both blew water. Luckily I had a new valve to replace the dead one and in place of the filter I just installed a 1"x4" nipple. With the repairs done I got the irrigation lines turned on.
The drip lines in the garden get laid down in the approximate areas of the rows. I have to leave them loose until I get the plastic pulled out so I can move the lines to be inline with the cut holes of each row. It's a bit tricky as I try to make y walking paths between the rows and so I like to try and get the lines as close as possible so I am not shifting rows onto the walking paths I have made. I tilled the garden so the soil will be loose, but my walking negates that so minimization is key.
With lines laid out I started to unfold the plastic onto the different rows. The easiest to lay out is the upper rows by the strawberries.
Next easiest was the big piece that is where the tomatoes generally grow. The plastic is a bit worse for wear but it IS 4 or 5 years old at this point. $65 for a 20x100 roll of 4mil black plastic and it lasts me 5 years when I pull the plastic for Winter. I try my best to lay the plastic to cover the most ground possible even with the holes. I use a lot of the rocks that get dug out of the soil as weights to hold the plastic down.
By this time @stryeyz had gotten home from work and I had my new tire. I was worn out from the day so I spent a bit getting the new tire on and the bike has been resurrected. I gave it a couple rides around the farm and it felt like it is still in pretty solid shape. I had mentioned to J that now that I have my bike going and he knows how to ride we will go to the lake and I will tow the bike trailer with R in it and he can ride his bike. It is a mile and a quarter loop around the lake so I figure today we will go see how he does. Not sure if we will fish or not, likely not, but I may bring stuff in case.
Today we're going to the lake, I have to finish laying out the plastic, tonight is scouts,
^Affiliate/Referral Link^
Signup With my Link and we BOTH get 25K RBN
Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce
All images are original works of Fleming Family Farm unless otherwise notated and credited.
If you find this post useful or entertaining, your support is greatly appreciated by upvoting, following, and sharing!
Bitcoin : 1C6idTJBJ3CJJt9kHoKi4av1XLzg8eQ7rv
Nice to see you still so hard at work on the homestead @flemingfarm! I'm enjoying catching up on the international homesteaders after my two year absence. We can appreciate all your hard work. And I must admit with our mischievous animals irrigation becomes that much more challenging
#proofofshare
Gab
Fascinating watching you lay out the irrigation....