My body is so tired. My arm muscles, my back muscles, my leg muscles, my neck muscles...okay...all my muscles are just plain tired. I'm not complaining, though. I actually really enjoy this overall fatigue. When I feel this way, I know I've worked hard and will have plenty of fruits (pun intended) to show for my labor.
The weather people have been predicting rain for the past few days, but it looks like we will actually get some real rain tomorrow. Rain is awesome, but in order for it not to set us back too much, we had a lot to accomplish before the storm comes. Jeff's growing "system" requires the use of plastic mulch on top of our planting beds. The plastic, which comes in a very heavy roll of a few thousand feet, warms the soil, prevents weeds from germinating (thereby dramatically reducing the amount of weeding I have to do...yes!), and protects the plants from lots of pests and elemental dangers. Plastic mulch comes in a bunch of different colors that have different purposes for different crops. For example, we use red plastic for tomatoes because the red plastic bounces a certain kind of light back at the plants, which stimulates the hormone in the tomato plants that govern how much fruit is set. Green plastic does double duty warming the soil, making it perfect for any spring crops and great for those summer veggies that need extra heat. The one downside of the plastic is that it is not recyclable or reusable, but its benefits are so great and it allows us to produce such a high yield of crops using little water and with limited labor that, for now, it is our one necessary evil. Another great thing about the plastic is that once the plastic is laid, it can rain as much as the sky wants and we can plant immediately after. Without plastic, we would have to wait for the soil to dry and become workable, which could set us back significantly.
So, that leads me to today's activities. Our task was to get as many beds made and covered with plastic as we could so that we can continue our planting of the spring crops immediately after the rain. We spread a lot of compost and did a lot of shoveling - and let me tell you, shoveling heavy, wet dirt is not an easy task - but, by the end of the day, we had our beds made. And I am left with delicious fatigue. I will sleep well tonight, I guarantee.
This is a picture of some of the beds that we made. I think the plastic on the beds makes them look like long Slip 'N Slides. I'm always a little tempted to make a run for it and see how far I could slide.
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