Tilling, Planting, and waiting on blackberries

I have a good friend who is good at finding bargains.  He called me the other day and asked if I could use another rototiller.  Yes, I could.  A 1989 Troybilt econo horse. It is smaller than my 1977 troybilt horse so it will work better in the tunnels.  Plus it was cheap.

 tiller in clover

Here it is shown in last year’s potato patch that I let grow up in clover for a cover crop.  This shows the tiller sitting in the clover to show you how tall the clover was.  Three rows tilled.  Two to go.  The area tilled in front is after just one pass with the new (to me) tiller.  I like it when a machine works the way it is supposed to.  Garden Way always advertised their tillers as composting tillers.  It sure did chew this clover up.  I’ll let the beds sit a couple of days now, till it one more time, and then those rows will be ready to plant again.  A good piece of equipment sure can make life easier.

baby peppers ready to go into the ground

Surely it is not going to freeze or frost again.  I guess I must think so because I’m transplanting out all the rest of the peppers and tomatoes today.   Grow, babies, grow!

blooming blackberries

The blackberries  are getting close to full bloom, finally.  Took a while.   Usually we start harvesting berries the first week in June.  Not this year.  Spring sure is late.  I wonder how hot the summer’s going to be.  

Plato and short, short, short wheat

And in case you will be wondering later why bread prices are going to go up.  Here’s Plato sitting next to a wheat field.  The wheat’s about 8 inches tall and headed out already.  Tiny little grains of wheat and not many of them.  In a normal not drought year this wheat would be taller than Plato with big heads of grain.  I’m wondering if there is even enough grain in this field to cover the cost of harvesting it.  I doubt it. They probably won’t harvest it.  Wheat fields all around this area mostly look this bad.  Bad for farmers but I also pity the custom combine crews that harvest wheat from Texas and then keep moving north as the grain ripens till they finish up in Canada.  They aren’t going to have much work in Kansas this year.  Hurts us all.   It has just started raining here as I write this.  Any rain will be good (I’m sure glad to have it) but it is too late to help this wheat crop.  Maybe my creek will start running again though.  That would be good.