I decided to grow winter squash for our online market and winter markets in the area. Along with this, the fall Farmers Market season. For the most part, I don't see many winter squash being grown and sold in this area. They take a long time to grow and take up a lot of space. I have the time, but not the space at home.
SO, the hope and pray come in here. I asked my parents if I could have a location to plant and grow these at their farm. I mentioned that I could probably use one of the old pig pens. Sure it had alot of weeds, a few trees and some other pig stuff still there. But unused dirt is what I was looking for. So I borrowed the tractor and mower and mowed off the entire hog lot. Cut down the bigger trees and I was started.
Next Dad brought up the 4640 John Deere and a Disc Chisel to break the ground. Enter the concern. It was a little wet, when we worked it, but it had to be done and there were chances for more rain. The rain didn't come so the next week I came down and I wanted to disc it. Frustration follows. While I only snagged the fence once, I ran the disc over the field several times. This did a good job of breaking up the soil and cutting up the grass, but the clods were huge. I worked it up too wet again. Don't I ever learn?
Well several days later, I want to start planting seed. Well I figured I would just do what I do at home, sure it would take a while, but I have time. Finally, enter disgust.
My tiller wouldn't break up these clods to save my life. It just would turn them over. So I did the only thing I knew would break up and pulverize the soil into a decent seed bed, rent a tractor and tiller. While it did a great job, it wasn't what I wanted 100%. It was much better than the disked ground, but still left a lot of room for improvement.
It was finally time to plant. Planting 1,400 row feet of squash wasn't as hard as I thought. It only took about 3 hours. I used the best system I had, my foot, a 1.5 inch PVC pipe, 4 feet long and a handful of seeds. Kick and jab the pipe in the dirt/clods drop a seed or two in the pipe, pull the pipe up and see if the seeds are under the surface. If not, kick some dirt on top of them. Then repeat 1,399 more times.
Then this story starts to take shape. A few days after I seeded the entire patch the best kind of rain happened. 1.5 inches fell nice and slow. It allowed for the clods to soak up some water and break down. It gave the seeds nice moisture to come up and it didn't wash anything away.
Next it was time to install the drip tape. I wanted to put the drip tape in the ground and plant the seeds beside the emitters. Well with the ground so cloddy, and time not on my side. I decided to plant, then put the drip tape down. Since I went with option 2, I had to "Pin" the tape down with wire hooks. If not, it would blow around. So that is what I did. I put the 6,000 foot roll of drip tape on my trusty yellow wagon and started pulling it down the rows of squash. When I reached the halfway point, I stopped, went back and pinned it down about every ten feet. Keep in mind nothing was coming up yet, I just had to look at where I thought I planted it and hope I was on the row. I did a pretty good job.
Now the squash are coming up and the drip is up and running. Then along come the weeds.
Since I have access to tractors and equipment, I am trying to add some mechanized tillage. So I pulled this old drag disc out of the trees.
It is 8 foot wide and has no hydraulics. Instead of a tractor I used my nephews 4-wheeler. It worked like a dream. I didn't get a before picture, but here is the after.
The only problem is I didn't get all the rows wide enough. Some were very close and I almost disced out a few plants.
Now it is time to hoe around all the plants and hope for nice weather.
South 4 rows,
North 4 rows,
Close Up pick
That looks like an amazing adventure. Way to go! I'm sure it will be well worth the effort. Love me some winter squash!
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