My First Day!

        My first day I arrived at Aylmer farms, at the Earderly plot. It was a cool morning, supposed to get much warmer later in the day, and that it did! Since it’s still early in the season there remains a lot of housekeeping stuff that needs to be done. We spent most of the day lifting sod; mostly grass, crabgrass, and dandelions. While doing this we were also working on making the beds and pathways more defined so one knows where to step and where not to step. While digging in the dirt I was seeing plenty of worms, which is a really good sign for the soil. On the other hand, we also found plenty of little Japanese bean beetle larvae which we had to squish to kill because they’ll eat and kill the vegetables. Some of the smaller ones weren’t so bad to squish, but sometimes when I’d find a really big juicy one I had to squish it with my boot or my shovel; not a pleasing feeling when squished between two fingers (wearing gloves of course). We also placed round plastic protectors (yogurt/sour cream containers) around the kale plants as a preventive measure against cutworms (green caterpillar looking things), as they already destroyed two of the plants.  Overall, it was a great first day at the [backyard] farm! There’s still a lot for me to learn but I’m really keen and super excited!

kneepads!

Japanese bean beetle larvae