This last week was so busy here at Flywheel Farm that we squeezed in an extra day!  As I type, Justin and his father are wrapping up construction on our insulated box (which will eventually be a walk-in cooler for our produce).

But first things first, on Wednesday we laid down black plastic mulch for our ‘hot’ crops (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and melons).  It was our first time operating this plastic mulch layer, so we put aside the whole day for getting it down right.  Discs open a furrow, then wheels set the edges of a roll of plastic into the furrow and discs in the back close dirt over the edges.  The implement also puts down irrigation lines under the plastic at the same time.  It is a thing of beauty when everything goes well.

In related news, the black flies are out in full force here in Woodbury.  Justin and I wore bug nets all day while laying down the mulch.

On Friday, my father came up from NH to help us put up our caterpillar tunnel for our tomatoes.  The caterpillar is an economical alternative to the 4-season high tunnels offered through Rimol and Ledgewood.  It is only 3-season, since it cannot handle any snow.  We’re using our caterpillar for tomatoes only, so we will take it down in the fall.

Putting up the bows.

Inside the tunnel after we got the plastic on.

The ‘caterpillar’ from the outside.

We did get rained on, though not enough to stop us from putting up the whole tunnel in one day.  I was impressed.

On Sunday, Justin’s dad visited to help with the construction of our walk-in cooler.  He and Justin worked together on that project while I planted tomatoes.

Our cooler is housed in a building that’s basically a mirror of our wash and pack area.

The cooler is an insulated box right now.

During all this transformative infrastructure-building, we seeded lots of greens, sweet corn, potted up basil plants, and steadily moved plants out of their comfortable greenhouse onto benches outside.  The weather was hot, humid, cold, windy, rainy, dry all week.  I guess spring isn’t completely over!

Oh! And a quick rabbit update:  The babies are outside, on pasture and it is so wonderful that I just bought the supplies for getting our breeding does and buck out there too.  I haven’t finished the hutch that will go on the end of the tractor so for now I’m grabbing a tarp when very heavy rains threaten.  They may be weaned off their mothers but I’m still babying them!