The tomatoes are started - finally!

I spent the day with Little man dividing up between farm chores and play.  I made the decision that I didn't care if my floor had muddy dog prints on it or if the kitchen table still had lunch crumbs on it.  I was going to spend the day with my son, on the farm.  

It was a good trial of what is in store if I was on the farm full time with Little man in tow.  I will not always have fun chores to do like planting seeds, but I am certain that I can make weeding entertaining, at least for the next year or two.  Part-time farming and part-time off-farm work is something that I tried a few years ago.  At that time Little man was an infant and my first child.  There wasn't any way that I was going to make it work then.  After the successful day yesterday, it might be time to try it again.

The rain came in spits and spats so Little man put on his ski pants if only for protection from the mud.  We went out the greenhouse and he helped me dig out and level an area by the door where we then put down an old feed bag for weed control and bricks procured at a yard sale.  Now, we didn't have any sand or nor did we 'frame in' the bricks so they are a little wobbly, but the muddy spot that was developing by the door is no longer.

A plastic garbage barrel from a free pile on the side of the road had holes drilled into the sides, bottom and top for circulation and became the compost bucket.  Little man quickly lost interest in shoveling the heavy materials in various stages of decomposition.  We were able to squeeze the whole pile into the barrel and then watered it thoroughly.  Worms, who were brave enough to come into the warm greenhouse were also added to the bucket to see if we could speed the process along.  Underneath the pile was some beautiful, black compost.  I scraped that off the floor and added it to the raised bed inside the greenhouse being careful not to bury the tractor and the car-hauler that Little man had working hard in there.

Those two tidying up chores completed, I headed under the benches for a couple of flats to start the seeds.  My seed starting mix was soaked with water and we both got dirty after that.  Stirring water into dehydrated peat, vermiculite and soil is pretty messy - but a lot more fun with a five-year-old's help.  The mix was added to the flats, seeds sprinkled, covered and gently patted.  Each flat was carefully labeled, with a popsicle stick of course!  Out of a thawed water source, we brought the flats inside and carefully watered them.  Once back inside Little man's attention was drawn to his toys.

I went out to the garage and grabbed a set of salvaged shelves, dusted them off, brought them inside and covered them with leftover plastic from my greenhouse project.  The plastic will not only keep them a bit warmer inside my cool kitchen but will also deter the cats from digging in the flats.  If Mother Nature cooperates then I will be able to move them out to the greenhouse to their transplant pots in two to three weeks.  If it remains too cool then I will be rigging some shelving for a half-a-thousand transplants in my kitchen.