The Magic Skagit

It's been a busy week at Finney Farm!  Following are some photos of projects I've been working on.

Setting up twine suspension in the greenhouse.  

I tied twine around the base of each tomato plant, loosely wrapped it around the main stalk, and tightly secured it to the top rope.  This stands the tomato upright and encourages vertical growth more so than traditional tomato cages, which simply provide side support for plants.  Jennie compared the technique like this - crutches will give a person some upright support, while being hung by ropes on your wrists from a ceiling will really stretch you out.  

Twine-wrapped stalk

Last week I also made soil blocks for plant starts.

 Final product

First I had to mix potting soil.  It's a top-secret Finney Farm recipe which calls for dirt, sand, Perlite, coco fiber, and bat guano. 

 High nitrogen content!

Once that's done I wet the mixture, pack it into a soil block maker, push down on the handle and get four perfectly-shaped soil blocks! 

Super high-tech tool

For some reason I really enjoyed making soil blocks, as monotonous as it seems.  It was quiet and quick and I found it meditative.  It reminded me a lot of making mud pies as a kid

I spent the rest of the week weeding, transplanting, fertilizing, watering, and helping level ground for a new small greenhouse.

Weeding the blueberry orchard.  Far from ripe.

135 squash starts planted in squash mounds

 Hand-painted shed organization signs

 Harshly-worded road signs

Skagit County sprays pesticide on weeds along South Skagit Highway, where Finney Farm is located.  Being an organic farm, Finney Farm isn't interested in chemicals being sprayed on the property.  Hopefully my signs will be visible through the pesticide haze and sprayers will skip over Finney.

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Yesterday it was gloriously sunny again and almost seventy degrees out.  I took a break mid-afternoon between preparing beds and transplanting lettuce to head down to Finney Creek, the namesake of the farm.  In the sun the snow-melt creek's temperature was tolerable for longer than thirty seconds and I sat in the ankle-deep water until I felt sun drunk.