Our Big Weekend Day Two

Saturday started out with the guys working on pounding in more supports for the high tunnel hoops. They hit some major rocks on the far side of tunnel 2 and had to spend quite some time digging them out with the tractor.

Just after lunch was the arrival of the bees! They came in these little boxes complete with five frames of bees and a queen. You will notice at the bottom some of the bees on the outside of the box. They clung there for the whole 2 hour ride from Maine!

The bees looked great when the boxes were opened, David inspected each frame looking for brood.

Can you spot the queen bee in this pic? It is a little tricky because she is under another bee but you will notice on close inspection that she is much longer than the others and her stripes look a little different.

Here is Liz setting the inside cover in place.

Bee keepers perfume!

The lid from this box was loaded with bees!

They were even building comb on top of the frames when we opened the box.

This little bee didn't make it!! But it made a fun pic!

All the bees were happy by the time we got them loaded into the hives, added another box and then some sugar water for a little extra boost!

While all the excitement with the bee hives was going on the guys were busy erecting tunnel one! It was so nice to see one finally up!!

Some of the gang worked on hoop construction while the first tunnel was being erected.

Once the hoops were completed, team 2 decided to erect their own tunnel!
GO Team!!

Meanwhile... Emmy is guarding the greenhouse plastic which is rolled up neatly in these green bags...

...and Ethan is just hanging around, so much for help from the kiddos.

The asparagus is coming along nicely! We under-sowed it with white clover to keep the weeds down and feed the plants some extra nitrogen. Also the bees will love it!

The finishing touches needed to be done up in the rafters! David seems content to sit up there awhile and enjoy the "Grand View".

Two houses up! What a great day!!

At the end of the day Paul and the girls tilled more ground for veggies!
Heard it stated today "our eyes are bigger than our stomachs"!!! Time will tell...
And here is Pat digging rocks to make way for even MORE land to be tilled! Did I mention there are LOTS of rocks???

Day three coming soon...

Our Big Weekend Day One

Day one of our big work weekend really started on Thursday with the arrival of our high tunnels along with some personalized instruction on how to set them up. Bright and early on Friday the construction began. The first step was to level the ground a little and plot out where each tunnel was going. Then the guys moved on to pounding in the metal supports for each hoop.

All the supports for tunnel one were finished later in the day and then up went the first hoop.

The first hoop is up!

The girls were busy prepping and planting in the outside garden. The first crop in the ground was our snap peas!

James helping to cover out little seeds.

We also planted our broccoli seedlings.

Later that evening it was all hands on deck to get the site ready for the honey bees to arrive in the morning.

We have diligently been working on scraping and painting the hives to have them ready for Saturday. They look so nice all set up in the field! The electric fence was put up earlier in the day with some homemade fence posts!

What a busy first day! So much more still to do..
Stay tuned for day 2!

First Planting

Welcome to Grandview Farm!
Our family is so excited to get started with this adventure in growing our own food!
Here is a photo of the newly broken ground at the site where the high tunnels will be placed.

Here Sarah is applying the first dose of lime.

Paul and Ethan tilling the Asparagus bed so that we can get our first veggies in the ground!

We then had to come behind the tractor and pick up rocks, lots of rocks!

If you look closely you'll see the 75 or so asparagus plants happily in their new home. Now we wait... 2 or 3 years, a long time for these little delights!

We then relocated a patch of Rhubarb that was in desperate need of a new home. This rhubarb patch has been relocated several times but came from the original Grandview Farmhouse across the street.

Mark gives them a little drink once in the ground.

A little down time after a hard days work!

Seedlings!

The seed house at Little Grandview Homestead is almost full to capacity! Loads of veggies are up and ready to be planted, including squash, broccoli, cabbage, pumpkins, peppers, eggplant, lettuce, tomatoes and more!

We have about 80 tomato plants! There are 3 varietys including an heirloom, a slicing and a roma tomato for canning.