Last year we spent a great deal of time and money upgrading our farm equipment. We bought a new bed making machine in the spring to make very flat and uniform beds. In August our new Seeding Machine arrived made by John Bauer at Snow Seed in Salinas. This sows 12 rows on a 80" bed, each 5" apart. This works very well for many of the salad crops we grow. T take care of the weeds we imported two machines that I had seen at the Paris machinery show; a brush hoe and a finger weeder. The brush hoe is like s street sweeper except where the crop lines are there are tunnels and the brushes are removed. the finger weeder cultivates between the plants in the row wherever we transplant 3 rows on our beds. Hand hoeing is no pretty much a thing of the past here on the farm. Both machines work very well.
Our crops look the best they have ever been at this time of the year.The yield per bed has increased with the extra rows and the weed competition is decreased. We are now harvesting lots of winter greens; lettuce, spinach, kales, chards, arugula, broccoli, turnips, radishes, parsley, cilantro, cauliflower and more. We have peas, beans and garlic growing nicely for the spring. Our Strawberry field looks great. We are preparing ground in the orchard to plant more peaches, nectarines, grapes, figs and pomegranates.
