Today I spent three hours laying drip irrigation line on seven beds of cucumbers and melons. This task would have taken thirty minutes had I done it two weeks ago, but now the plants are vining everywhere and I had to painstakingly lace the tape along the ground and under the plants. Luckily I was in a good mood (even though it was hot), and I was able watch myself with some perspective and laugh. I thought we weren’t going to do stupid inefficient stuff anymore.
Randy and I had decided to double the size of the garden, double the size of our CSA and add another market this year because we thought we could be much more efficient and effective with our labor – the one thing that we would not be able to double. Last year we spent a lot of time doing stupid stuff. We had lots of tractor problems and we were still figuring out how to best use our equipment. The epic battle with the squash bugs sucked up a lot of time. We lost. It seems like Randy spent the whole month of August weeding the sweet potatoes after we let the weeds get away from us. At least we had the good sense to give up on the peanuts.
So why, in 2013, am I spending three hours doing a thirty minute task? I have proof that setting up irrigation on the cucurbits was on the workplan for the evening of Saturday, July 13th, at which point it as already overdue. But it got bumped in favor of more urgent activities – like planting the cucumbers that were looking worse by the day in the greenhouse. If I didn’t get them planted I’d have to toss them and start over. And I efficiently and effectively disked and made beds for the neighboring sweet corn at the same time as the cucumbers. So I had to plant the sweet corn while the beds were soft and easy for the seeder and before the weeds got a jump start – or I would have to disk and make beds all over again and that mid-October first frost date is bearing down on us … and so on. As far as our work plan goes “this will be more work later” is not a compelling argument compared to “this will be impossible later.” Sometimes we end up doing stupid stuff not for lack of planning or foresight, but simply because we get backed into a corner.
Despite the fact that the Johnson grass took over the potatoes, a third of the tomatoes never got staked, only one pepper variety will ripen without rotting, and a million other problems, we have managed to grow a lot more vegetables this year. On the other hand, I think we are working harder – the slow down I remember from last July and August has not yet materialized. In his book You Can Farm, Joel Salatin cautions against spending too much money on things that save time, especially if you are the kind of slacker who watches TV. That advice was not meant for me. Excessive frugality paired with a chronic overestimation of my abilities can be an obstacle to making sound farming decisions. Not to mention the fact that I am prone to running myself into the ground before taking a break (but I’m working on it).
In the end I got the drip tape in place, the header line hooked up and the water turned on. Just in time for rain. Oh no, I thought, maybe I should have been picking tomatoes (rain make them split) or preparing the plots for fall plantings (just a couple short weeks away)… but whatever I “should” have been doing, at least there is one more thing I can check off the list.