life on an organic farm is.... problematic if there's frost! But sometimes it's just a false alarm....

As I explored the great city of Burlington, yesterday on my day off, Hannah, Ellyn and Eric creatively covered the newly planted tomatoes upon hearing of a possible overnight frost. Row covers, small buckets and yogurt containers all helped to fend off a June frosting! In the morning however, we discovered that weather reports had falsely predicted frost, and the previous day's efforts were unfortunately, unnecessary. So, this morning the three of us uncovered the tomatoes. The row covers didn't come off as easy as I thought! Since dirt holds them down from blowing up in the wind, Ellyn and I were covered in dirt and mud by the end, after rolling the covers up with our frozen fingers.

After that, we hammered in poles throughout the tomatoes, for a future rope that will be intertwined between them, so the tomato vines can eventually grow on it.
Then, we sat on our butts and did some weeding. Carrots, leeks, beets and onions all are just starting to sprout up above the ground. Because of the way they're planted, some of the carrots are all growing in clumps, so need to be thinned out. This entails separating each carrot from each other a couple inches, and removing the carrots in between like a weed, so that they have room to grow. This type of weeding takes a lot of close looking and patience, because they're so tiny now so it's hard to tell them from little weeds or even blades of grass!