Dirt should be weightless and able to fly uphill

Facing cruel and unrelenting abuse from seemingly perpetual afternoon rainstorms, we have for some completely unrelated reason dedicated the majority of our time this week to jobs that can be done inside. Luckily, we have been able to get to somethings that we have been neglecting. For example, there are eight raised beds that were built to fit around the greenhouse that needed to be painted. Done!

On Wednesday and Thursday, we lathered five of the beds with a charming green paint the exact color of split pea soup. We picked up some clear coat from Sliter's and sprayed it on the three remaining beds. Here's the best part of this post: those three beds are decorated with lovely depictions of vegetables and bugs, courtesy of our seventh grade artists.

To protect their artwork, we carefully rolled the beds out to the greenhouse and [had to be mini hulks] to lift them onto the gravel filled platform that the greenhouse was already positioned in the middle of. A humongous pile of manure goodness about 150 feet from the greenhouse beckoned and instructed us to fill the newly painted raised beds with its fecal joy. The issue? All of those 150 foots are on an uphill slant. Uphill. Thus, Monday and today consisted mainly of

 1. Filling the wheelbarrow with dirt

 2. Pushing the wheelbarrow uphill

 3. Shoveling the dirt from the wheelbarrow into the raised beds

 4. Pushing the wheelbarrow down the hill

 5. Repeating this FOREVER

Note: Every other time there is an additonal #6, which is Katie thanking god she filled up the wheelbarrow the last time so now it's Jordan's turn.

 The beds are filled with dirt now and we can focus on getting them filled with plants that will produce lots of food! As for a quick update on the hydroponic shed and the main garden (which has 6 large raised beds, not to be confused with the 8 smaller, split pea colored raised beds by the greenhouse), the pH in the hydroponic shed appears to have stabilized. We have maintained a pH of 6.1, reservoir of 13 gallons, and parts per million within a relatively tiny range for five straight days. We check those stats twice a day and record them in a logbook.

 The main garden currently boasts a fine looking row of raspberries, three pots of zinnias, five baby zucchinis, four baby pumpkins, a colony of onions, a rival colony of garlic, and several rows of carrots that have just started to peep out of the ground. The self seeded lettuce is ready for harvest and its replacement, a crew of swiss chard starts, will be planted in the main garden within the next week.