Tidying up the fields

There's something very satisfying about tidying up. With the bulk of our field transplanting starting to slow down, we're able to give a bit more time to garden maintenance. I got in the better part of the day on Thursday with "Tuff", our little in row cultivator. In this picture I'm going over the pathways and edges of the beet beds. You can see two tines on each side of the belly turning over the little weeds, and there's another tine behind the back wheels. This leaves just the middles of the beds to touch up with hoes, letting our hoeing crew move much more quickly through the garden. We try to knock down weeds between their first leaves and about three inches tall, before they establish. After that stage it's hand weeding... and in a big garden like ours it's hard to make time for that! While some plants grow happily enough with weeds, the shade usually slows their growth down considerably. Our zucchinis and pattypans have been producing much more slowly due to the weeds so far, but the next planting has been cultivated with the tractor and hoes, and is off to a great start :)