Do Something Even If It’s Wrong

He says you're gonna need to tarp that or flame weed it. Weeds are gonna blow up.

Oh, we don't have a flame weeder.

Should I pull it or should I just keep doing that?

Okay, he stopped typing.

I guess I'm confused because we've hit another detour here, but is that kind of what we did?

Problem is we've got a bee's nest next to our sandbags. Turns out we didn't have to do all that gardening prep yesterday. We're texting with Casey Ostwich, seeing if we can just go ahead and direct seed this. He's saying we're gonna have to tarp it or flame weed it because the seed— seeds are just— or weeds are just gonna blow up because we've stirred up the seed bank. Tarping, we're gonna see how long it takes, but I'm pretty sure it's at least 2 weeks. Um, that gets us out of our planting window. And then flame weeder. We don't have a flame weeder. And in that moment we felt defeated, big-time overwhelmed, confused.

Why are, why are weeds gonna blow up here? I don't understand it.

We've stirred up the seed bank.

Well, you have to do that every time.

Yeah, you do. Yeah, there's no way around it.

So then I guess we have to, we can't direct seed this. We're gonna have to tarp it and then—

Hmm. Plant.

5 blocks.

Uh, also consider the DTM of each crop— date to maturity. Carrots can be seeded now, and kale could also be seeded now and transplanted later, but quick crops will be ready to harvest in 30 days or so. Quick crops is like spinach. We were trying to avoid, uh, starting so many seeds because we can't put them in the greenhouse, it's too hot. But we couldn't just give up.

Can I let the chicks out?

For sure, here. You want to set your— It's fine? It's soft. Okay, you're gonna let the chicks out. Actually, I gotta kick it into high gear and put some compost on this and get it covered before milking time. Now that we're gonna tarp this, we can leave this weed, so that's a good thing. I don't have to cultivate that by hand. We can also add compost, which is something we couldn't do before. And this is our compost. It is growing grass, probably from mowers slinging on it. I'm thinking let's get the top layer off and grab some of the soil that's in there. And even if it has some seed in it, it's okay because we're going to tarp it. Okay, we've got the weeds cleared off the top, and that does look like straight up soil. Rebecca, here, 2 loads of compost.

Boom.

Maybe 2 or 3 more. It's milking time, but I want to get this— I want to get this composted, maybe covered. And now I hear it in my head as an encouragement, Joel Salatin saying, just do something, even if it's wrong. Good right here, putting down compost. And then I realized these, these kale stems, they aren't going to go anywhere in 2 weeks. And they could pierce the plastic. One reason we need to finish no matter what is that storm. We don't want it to rain and let's lose some of this soil we're adding. So Rebecca, you fill this up. I'm gonna go start looking for tarps. That's wheelbarrow load number 5. I think all we need, just Jonah, is one more. It's 9:23. I like to milk by 9. We got to get this done. Let's shoot for 9:30. Last wheelbarrow load. All right, we got it composted. It is 9:30. So we can't be this close though and not tarp it, right? We got one tarp on to the left of the kale. All right, looks like we lack one more kitchen garden tarp, Jonah. We've got these tarped. We got to get sandbags. I swatted down a bee's nest last night. See it? And every time I get close, they start swarming. Okay, maybe I could get right here, but there's some right there. Oh, those are dead. All right, I'm pushing it. John, I got some for you right there. They're swarming at my head. Yeah, they get crazy. We are finished. 10 o'clock. Rain can come on. Oh, we got a lot of catching up to do. As much as today felt like rework, I guess because it was in many cases, you know, uh, two steps forward, one step back kind of thing, uh, milking really began to calm me and bring it down a notch. After the crazy morning, this is kind of like a restful place. This is kind of like a happy place. Kind of catch your breath from that, get your thoughts on rhythm of the milking. Wow, Josiah, 10:50! That's a record. Milk the cows in 50 minutes. This makes me feel good. Worked hard, got something to show for our result, for our hard effort.

Good cabbage.

Would you look at that?

1, 2, 3, 4. Look at this one. 5, 6.

One more thing this morning, guys, then we can wrap it up. Let's get this to the pigs. Oh, let's give that to the chickens. And this to the pigs. Jonah, can you carry one side of this?

Is it on?

Yes, I hope so. Oh boy, the chickens will thank us. There are a couple of things that can make a tense day better, and that's supper from the farm and some great friends who have reached out and volunteered to come and help get this done. Happy birthday to no one. This is jamming food from our farm. Beef, cucumber salad, carrots, beets, and over there— well, the watermelon's not, but how appropriate since we're going to be harvesting beets and carrots today. You guys ready? You ready to get purple and orange? Okay. What do you like better, beets or carrots?

Uh, uh, beets.

Whoa, carrots.

Me? Yeah, all the way.

Okay, so do beets taste like dirt?

Yes, but in a good way.

So you like dirt?

I love dirt. I love purple dirt.

Okay, purple dirt, purple dirt. Different. Ben and Meg from Holler Homestead here to help us this evening. We're kind of doing a swap. They're going to help us Today we're gonna help you guys next week. Yep. Another thing to improve this day is take another problem, like having grown too many carrots for the amount of storage we have for them, and turning into a solution and harvesting it for the local food bank. Rebecca, what are we gonna do with all these carrots?

We are donating a large chunk of them to a food bank tomorrow.

Okay.

And The Hollers are gonna take a whole bunch home, and then we're gonna put the rest in our fridge, and we're just gonna keep— we're gonna take some to the dentist tomorrow when we go.

Awesome.

Nice. And we're just gonna keep giving them out to your dad and our friends.

And Ben's prying them up. The niños are taking them over.

That's a carrot!

Let me see that perfect carrot. That is— that's nice. Good job, Mr. Brown. This is a bottleneck here, isn't it? Yeah, they're going way faster. Oh yeah, and we're gonna be able to clean them. Shoot, I'm gonna have you then cut these. All right, tops. You got scissors? Because this is the bottleneck right here, babe. You guys, when you bring them, put them in there now, okay? Look at that. That went through a beef bone.

I've never seen that happen. Beet carrot.

Oh, a beet carrot. That's weird. So why do we grow so many carrots?

I'm not really sure what happened.

Give them away.

That's right.

I think we planted that many because we've never had success with carrots.

I was gonna say, I think that's right.

And it was for failure rate.

It was just to like—

we were really not expecting to grow carrots. It's a good problem to have, isn't it?

Yeah, it's really good.

Two piles of carrots. You know, they are shrinking way down when they go in that pan, so we're probably gonna need one more though, Rebecca, at least.

I got two over there.

Okay. Oh, so new plan: we were soaking them in here with their stems. We're gonna cut their stems off first and then soak them. Look at you! Oh my goodness, so many carrots! That's just one row. You just finished one row. Okay guys, so it is possible. So that plus what's in that bin is one row, Rebecca. So maybe, maybe one more bin. I'm gonna say 3 bins total. Is this all we have left? Rebecca, it looks like you're in a nest of carrots. You just looked at me funny.

Is this all we have left?

I wish I could have zoomed in on that earlier.

That's hilarious. Oh, it's insanity.

Boo yeah! I'm gonna guess 50 pounds, 70 pounds, 120 pounds. So many carrots. That would be a year, or you know, 6 months if we had a way to store it. But yeah, we got it done. Now tomorrow we're gonna give most of those carrots away. Now this is what it's all about, niños. It's not carrot juice from the carrots we just picked.

Is it not good? Tyler is liking it.

Let's see what you think, Munchie. You'll tell us the truth. Tastes very charity. Pretty good. You said you were tired, but that's taking it to a whole new level, buddy.